The Poet and the Muse
by phantomwriter05
Summary: The mysterious death of an ally in the present is just the beginning of a larger revenge filled conspiracy to destroy the Connor family. Meanwhile two star-crossed lovers try to hide their secret relationship from suspicious eyes all around them. Sequel to "The Hanging Tree".
1. Guide My Sword

**Prologue**

_Guide My Sword_

_Some Years from Now_

There was a golden light that touched the colored leaves of autumn in the rich tapestry of browns, oranges, and yellows. The chilled wind selected the leaves on their branches snatching them away, like a choreographer counting off her dancers to join their brothers and sisters in the endless recital. Sometimes the graceful leaf found itself a solo act, twirling and tumbling while the rest applauded in the rustle of their instructor's encouragement. Sometimes it was a group effort, figure eights, and a twirling orbit as they spun on taking their moment in the sunshine doing all they could do, before finding their everlasting rest on the sod with the rest of their siblings. They would be mulched in time and together nourish their mother through the winter, only to return again in the spring. It was an endless cycle, and yet a performance for the ages.

In the rustle of the wind, another solitary leaf the color of amber fluttered from high above the old grandfather of a tree in the clearing of the woods. Gently and coyly it sauntered on the chill looking for a place to land. Big innocent green eyes blinked open just in time to see the crescendo of its tour-de-force. They followed its path as it looked to be coming closer, then arc backward as if to land far away, then return. There was a simple pleasure in the trajectory, a refreshing randomness of wonder in where it might land. A quiet chuckle met the answer, when the tiny dancer fell with a crinkle on the stubbled face of the toddler's slumbering recliner.

The boy had a mop of black curls poking under a dark blue beanie, and little field coat of a matching color. The tiny tot lay against the large frame of a tall and broad man, who was splayed out under the tree, snoozing heavily. He had a ruggedly handsome face of designer stubble and a head of messily styled dark locks. Between the handsome young man and the toddler there was something in their facial features that had a quality of similarities, that was no mistaking that they were of the same blood. Sitting up from his reclined position, the little boy wobbled to his feet. Breathing audibly and biting his lip, holding a hand down as he stood. Balance suspect, he toddled unevenly with silent crunches over the chilled turf till he stood over the sleeping man's covered face. With some effort the small boy squatted next to the man and a chubby hand cautiously reached for the stem of the four pointed leave. With a giggle the toddler tried to grip his leaf. His soft hands brushed ticklish facial hair while the man sniffed and wiggled his nose at the feather touches. Once safely in the boy's grip, he unceremoniously plopped back down on the grass next to the man's head.

The leaf was bigger than his hands, dry and crinkled, and yet it seemed to be the most amazing treasure in the sight of one so innocent to the world of wonders around him. He lifted it to his face and gently gummed it for its taste. He frowned and crinkled his nose in displeasure, smacking loudly with a snorted shake of his head. Figuring that it was not something you eat, he next placed it on his face, making little noises of curiosity as he watched the world with an auburn tint. Suddenly the wind captured his leaf out his ginger grip.

With a whine of protest he watched it carry away from him through a thicket of smaller trees. Never before had the boy been up and about on wobbly untested legs faster than he was now. He almost ran several times, falling to the floor more than once, only to get up and follow away from the blanketed picnic area anchored by a full wicker basket filled with dirty dishes. In the dozens of multicolored leaves around him, the toddler's extraordinary eye for detail even at a young age hadn't lost sight of his special leaf that twisted and teased the little child as it was swept further and further into the forest.

There was splotchy darkness on the sunlit forest floor while the red colored cleaves rustled overhead. Their thin and bent white trunks offsetting with the leaves making it seem in the shimmy and shakes as if the entire wood was aflame. Within this embrace of nature and endless wonder, the tiny tot continued his pursuit till the wind called off its taunting. The four pointed leaf finally found its rest nestled in the hollow of a thick tangle of roots. With an exhilarated chortle of zeal upon his charge, there was a happy bounce in the toddler's sprint. Never had there been a prouder capture in a hunt than when the boy had reclaimed his solitary leaf.

This time would be different as he hugged it to his chest. Gently he opened his Jacket and slipped it inside carefully. When he was sure that his friend was carefully secure he looked around at his situation. Big eyes began to glimmer with just a hint of fear, as tears began to well, as they came so easily to infants. In his pursuit of the leave he had seemed to have lost his way, surrounded by dark shadows and oddly shaped patterns of light that cut through the canopies above. He didn't know what to do or how to find his way back, and now ever so afraid of what the next minute would bring without his protector.

It was then that something would happen that he would never forget. A moment that most people have at some point or another, something important, something unique that even at such an early age one never forgets. For the boy it started simply with the change of the winds direction. It's odd warmth on the chilly autumn afternoon that directed his curls and made him cover his coat in protection of his treasure. Intuitively, he followed the direction that wind had blown him and saw a concentration of light in a clearing within the first section of the colored woods.

He would never forget the strange pull toward it, the feeling of familiarity and safety the closer he came to it. With a growing sense of unexplainable wonder he trekked across the cluttered floor with the crunch of leaves under tread. He paused at the tree line and observed a natural gully that led downward into a circler field of perfectly wild grass.

The clearing was surrounded by the trees that stood like a curious audience watching a stage on some grand theater. There, in the complete center of the field stood a beautiful girl. The teen had familiar long curls that ran down her back like a glossy rivers of chocolate. She wore simple white dress of linen and was covered by a leather motorcycle jacket that was audaciously colored in purple. She stood motionless as if a statue, though he could see that she saw everything. Her golden orbs followed patterns of leaves, as her hand stretched out to feel the direction of the chill between her fingers. The toddler found himself entranced by this dreamlike state and curiosity of what she was doing. He crouched behind a root and watched her.

It seemed like hours that she did nothing but stretch her hands out to her sides and watch the leaves around her. What she was waiting for was anyone's guess, but it was the most curious thing the boy had ever seen … because, he never seen her do this before. But then he'd never forget what she did next.

Feeling the time was right, he watched the teenage beauty slip off her coat and gently place it on the ground with care. There was a mechanical grace to the way she moved, smooth and yet as if everything she did was choreographed, pre-conceived like a dancer. There was a disguising marker in her knee high black boots and matching belt that shined in the golden light as she removed them, setting them neatly next to her leather jacket. Finally, there she stood elegantly in her flawless posture. The wind captured her curtain of hair and white skirt, as she waited just a moment longer.

Then … she began to dance.

It didn't make sense, didn't have reason for why she did what she was doing. There was no music, no recognizable string of chorography in which she moved to, but to one in which the boy recognized. She moved and twirled as one of the autumn leaves that suddenly swirled around them. The wind whipped hard around the forest and hundreds of leaves of the likes the boy would never see again became air borne. They all shifted in perfect harmony with the wind, and twirled in time with the girl as if they had taken their lead from her.

A look of pure otherworldly wonder crossed his tiny features as he looked all around him, a gentle smile touching the boy's lips as he watched the leaves of the forest all flutter and twirl as if being conducted to the same invisible, unheard music that directed the girl's movements. If this was what she had been waiting for, calculating, then it must have been some divine chance that had led him here to witness this incredible indescribable scene.

But there was none that would say that it was chance that led the young man leaning on the tree behind the toddler to her. The boy wasn't startled in his glance around to the sight of such life to find the slumbering man now awake, clad in his double breasted leather coat and old jeans. His arms were folded across his chest as he looked upon the girl as if there was nothing else in the world. His eyes glazed over a pleasant smile plastered across his face. He looked at her as if she was some god sent creature and he thanked him every day for her being where she was, where she always wanted to be … by his side. To see this dancer, to touch her, to kiss her, and to have the toddler at his feet, it was all an irreplaceable happiness that he thought he'd never find in his lifetime.

The boy looked back to the girl, then back to the young man who loved her. The toddler knew little of the world, and the complexities of emotions he had yet to comprehend or feel. But never had he seen the likes of what he felt when he saw the two of them together. The way he looked at her, was something different, something deeper than what some had ever known in a simple romance. To the young man she wasn't just his wife, his lover, his partner. She was more than what she appeared to be, had been made to be.

She was his life.

* * *

_Three Years Later_

With a startled shudder, emerald eyes blinked open. Suddenly a gothic mansion sitting in a dark neighborhood went away; the frightened face of a pretty little girl was replaced with the dark vinyl to the glove box. Lying across the front of a muscle car's cab was a little boy. The black leather seats were hot against his bare skin and the cotton of his thin, navy colored hooded sweat shirt. Wiping sweat on the pant legs of his jeans, the boy slid to a sitting position with a troubled look in his sad eyes. His hood was drawn over his head as he slept. He was still shaking, as was always the case when he dreamt of the girl who haunted his nights. She wasn't always a little girl, sometimes she was his mommy's … had been his mommy's age. Sometimes she was older than that. But she was always afraid, and _they_ always hurt her. His only consolation in the helpless compulsion to love and protect her was that she was nothing but a dream. It was the same strange nightmares that had been plaguing him since he could remember. But something told him that it was for the last time.

He sat in the passenger's seat of his father's car. Sliding his hand further into his sleeve, the boy began to wipe away the condensation on the window. He diligently rubbed away the moisture with several squeaks as he cleaned in a circle. When he was done he was treated to the view of the most idealistic sight of the tallest mountains the boy had ever seen. If he hadn't known better, in a passing fancy, in the dark they might have looked like massive, shadowed clouds. His father had told him once that if there was ever was a good place to hide, it would be the Pacific Northwest. He hadn't told him that lately. In fact, he hadn't said much of anything lately. The boy hadn't exactly said a lot of things either. It was hard living this way, trying to continue on when something was missing. It was like in school, reusing the old puzzles during rainy day recess and constructing the picture most of the way to only find that there was just one piece missing that ruined the picture of a clock tower. That was the way he felt, but it was more frustrating, and much sadder than a ruined puzzle picture.

He rubbed the sleep away with his sleeve and drew back his hood. A tumble of loose raven curls fell into his eyes when he freed his hair. He pushed back the moppy black hobbit curls and exited the car. It was a brisk and clear night that smelled of fresh air and Douglas Firs. Above, the stars were painted on the dark sky, and a milky layer of illumination touched just above the glowing snowcapped peaks of the majestic mountains on the dark horizons. All around the small boy there was a rustling ripple of the wind shimmying and crackling the vast forest land on either side, and far ahead of him. His breath was visible in the air and that made him smirk just a little. He liked the cold, it always reminded him of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. When you're a child the most exciting time of the year was when it got cold. But after a moment standing in the clean air, the new smells filling his lungs, he thought better of just stepping out in his thin pullover. Folding his arms over his chest and reached back behind his seat where there were over a dozen duffle bags stuffed in each nook and cranny. Which was nothing compared to the arsenal they had in the trunk. He retrieved a black miniature field jacket that had been a replica of his father's. On the breast pocket was a little shiny pin with a golden "R" outlined in black on a red field. Even with his hoody on, the jacket was still a large fit. His parents always bought him clothing that were a size or two too big for him. He was just wondering at this stage if he was ever going to grow into them.

Closing the door behind him, he paced to the front of the car, his sneakers crunching on the asphalt. He was a little nervous, because even though there hadn't been a car this way since they got there, he was always afraid of standing on the road. His mommy stressed the statistics and likelihood of being hit by a car in Los Angeles, and the great expenditures and financial burden it would cost her to put on a funeral for him. This reminder every time he didn't want to hold her hand when crossing the street, trying to convince the golden eyed girl that he wanted to be a "big boy" had more than stayed with him. Her repetition in lecture in turn created an anxiety every time he approached asphalt without a slander hand to hold. But now safely back to the driver's side, the raven haired boy perched himself on the hood of his father's Mustang.

Curious eyes searched innocently through the long stretched tree line on both sides for any sign of his father. The man had told him that he was to stay put, guard the car, and not leave for anything. They had come all this way, and seemed strange of all the many miles they traveled it was just to meet _Catherine Weaver_. She didn't stay and barely spoke a word to his father. As for him she merely asked if he was okay. He nodded, and she picked him up, comforting him with a cold, awkward hug and a word of advice that "Children are nothing, if not resilient." She disappeared into the woods after that and it was the last they saw of her. He guessed he didn't blame her for leaving when she did, the boy's father was not happy to see her, and even less happy to see her holding him.

Passing the time, glassy orbs turned the roadside into deductive grids. There had been three vehicles in the area in the last week. The oldest was a big rig, hauling lumber. It pulled over to pick up a passenger. The footprints were made by size six lady hiking boots that were pacing, accumulating a collection of burned out cigarette butts in their wake. He figured that she was on a camping trip. Someone made her mad, someone she knew for a longtime and had a bad history with, which is why she was stress smoking. She must have been an attractive lady which is why the lumber man stopped to pick her up on her way back home to Seattle. The second car was an SUV, it arrived before he and his father. One person, size four heels, she was carrying something heavy which is why the imprints are more defined. This must have been Catherine, carrying whatever it was that his father wanted returned to him. The last vehicle was theirs. It was a 1973 Ford Mustang, black with chrome stripes. It had been bought when his parents were younger, which they rebuilt by hand, together. It was his Mom and Dad's first and only car. The rumble of the engine, the leathery smell of the seats, and the shine of the chrome on a sunny California morning were all as familiar to the young boy as one might recount a beloved childhood home. From the driver's side was an imprint of motorcycle boots, size thirteen. The man had big feet, the boy often wondered if he would ever be as big as his daddy.

Curiosity gripped the young soul as he followed his father's trail from the trunk of their car out into the woods. He had been specifically ordered not to leave the car, but it began to eat at him why he had been gone so long. The sun had been setting when he and Catherine had disappeared, but now it must be at least three or four in the morning. He slipped off the hood of the car and hesitantly began following the tracks. He paused at the tree line which swung and snapped at him in the wind. There was something scary about the way the trees looked in the dim moonlight, their branches like clawed fingers, and the miserable and fierce faces that were twisted by aged bark. Also, with what happened to the beautiful girl in his dreams still fresh in his mind, he hadn't forgotten _the basement_. There was something about the way the shadows were thrown by the silhouettes of the forest in the starlight that reminded him of the dark abyss filled with _classical music_ that echoed over the screams of the tormented "princess" in his Nightmares.

He could've turned away and would've only a week ago. But he remembered his failure that night, the night he lost … his …. He remembered the fear that stopped his retribution, that let _"The Woman"_ get away after what she had done. After that night, watching a two story house of brick overlooking the city scape, the only home he had ever known burn to the ground. The boy swore that he'd never let it happen again. He swore he'd never be afraid again. Never let fear stop him … _**never again**_. With a deep breath of cold, pine-scented air, he trudged forward into the wild.

All around, the sound of animals and nocturnal birds filled his ears. He knew the risk of what could happen if he lost his way. Even a couple of steps into the dark woods and he might have already been lost. He compensated for this by keeping his eyes downcast. Making sure he followed his father's tracks from the road all the way to where he was now. He paused one or twice, the rustle of the trees, the hooted owl call that sounded like his name. His response was to draw his hood up and continue to sneak forward, to always keep moving.

A woman had told that to him, "Always keep moving." She was someone very important once, though he had no recollection of her but for feelings that came residually. She had always been sad, forever trapped in the cellars of some deep unshakable sorrow. It always somehow made him love her more, hoping that his deep affection for her would help. But it would seem his young struggles all came in vain, for now she was all but a shadow in his mind. A lingering nostalgia for a beautiful faceless woman who left one day and never came back. Her leaving had left a wake of anger and sadness, but in time the abandonment led to a stronger and more dependent love between two people who now needed one another more than ever with a toddler to raise by themselves. In the time his mind had lingered on this mystery woman, the boy had come upon a tiny clearing within a thick tangle of white trunked pines.

Hours of hacking, clearing, and cutting with a grief fueled focus had cleaned away space for a constructed bed of white pine logs. In the sky a passing wisp of obscuring clouds pulled away like stage curtains on the final act of a Grimm's Fairytale. When the full moon's purifying, silver light broke, the film of frost forming on the rare trees surrounding the clearing began to glint and glimmer like the falling of mourning tears in the sight in front of them. A man knelt at the side of the pine bed, as a man of faith might at the altar of his savior. He was tall and broad in the youth of his early twenties, though sudden grief and sadness seemed to have aged him. His dark hair was disheveled, a streak of white marring it overnight. His bearded face lay pressed to a lifeless hand in his impossibly tight grip. He seemed to be heaving heavily, his other large hand gripping a silken material over a taut torso. Upon the bed was the lifeless body of a young girl that had barely seen her seventeenth birthday … or so it had seemed. Her beautiful face was muted to color and emotion. Despite her skin tone it seemed as if it had only been a few hours that she had been alive, for there seemed to be nothing visible to say what had killed this angel who had run aground. Her glossy chocolate hair tied in a bun seemed to contrast with the array of white around her, including the elegantly strapless wedding gown she wore.

It had been weeks, he wasn't sure how many, since the last time the boy had seen her. Though, he'd never forget the last time as long as he lived. She had been lying in the middle of the living room floor. He could remember the shine of her pink night slip reflecting off the blank television screen, and her eyes, golden and blank as they stared up at the ceiling. He had shaken her, tried to wake her up … but she didn't and she never had since. He remembered being so desperate and afraid that he shook her so hard that it turned her lifeless head. There, stained on the living room rug was a massive pool of blood from where the top right of her head was missing. All he could remember in that moment was wires, so many blood soaked wires spilling out of her head like the guts of a pumpkin that was being carved for Halloween. Sometime before their neighbor Kacy carried him away as his father torched their house, to the time the man had kicked open the front door with his gun drawn. The boy had come to the realization that his _mommy_ would never wake up. So he laid his head against her belly like he always did, knowing that it would be for the last time.

His father tiredly, weakly, pushed himself to his feet. He might not have ever gotten up again. He'd pick a spot next to his wife, his arms around her and let go of all the destiny and prophecy that had made him. Let some poor hiker find them the way they were meant to leave this world, together. It wasn't for responsibility, or destiny that kept the man from joining his wife, it was all for the boy watching from behind a tree. Shaky hands short on food and sleep in the past weeks quietly folded his wife's hands to her chest, his in between them. He struggled to say anything, his voice coming out in a sobbed chortle of a weakened voice, tear drops falling on the bare skin of her chest. When all the things he wanted to say didn't come, he bowed his head in defeat. In their last moments together the broken man summoned all of the years that had come and gone, all the blissful moments together, and all the hard times that had yet to stay when the nights were spent in the arms of a love tailor made by impossibility. He let all of it crowd around him, allowing it to fill everything that made this man. Then, for the last time, he leaned down and captured the lips of his first and only love. Passing through him to her was all the "could've been" and yesterday's when they might have loved and found peace in the seclusion of their many future years together. And when they broke apart he left all of it within her. Like the rite of a last blessing he filled the beautiful girl with every last joy that could be had in the young man's life yet to be lived. There it would stay, to be burned away to ash with their love. It was a promise, a vow never forgotten as long as he drew breath. And when his heart squeezes its last beats under some decaying ruins of a dead city or nightmarish battlefield of scorched skulls and ash it will be calling her name forever.

There was a pop and then a fizz that broke the mourning silence that had been cast over the woods. Emerald eyes squinted away from the brilliant flash of light that erupted from a tossed road flare that landed on the wooden death bed. The smell of Thermite overpowered the clean air as a blinding flash created strange strobing shadows against the tall soldier pines. Though the boy looked away, his father didn't. He watched the flames, heard their roar as they lit the night. In their dancing light, slowly, like a hole in a volume container, the humanity in the widower drained away in the light of his wife's pyre. He would no longer be the man that came to this place. The young boy watched as his father reached for something around his neck, its silver, untarnished body glinting in the violent light. Emotionlessly he ripped the chain from his neck and held it to his side. Slowly, as he became entranced by the flames, it fell little by little from his grip, till it thumped onto the ground.

When he could no longer stand it, the young man, tired and seemingly drained of all human feeling, turned. The boy moved quietly, hugging the pine tree he used as cover, shifting unseen away from the man as he watched him go. In his passing, the boy held his gaze toward where his father had disappeared till he knew he was gone. Carefully he emerged from his hiding spot and moved below toward the burning pyre where what was left of his mother melted away. Strange shadows, and patterns of light danced over a small hooded face. He couldn't see her within the angry flames and maybe that was a good thing, but then was it any better than the last time he saw her? Lying on the floor, murdered in cold blood?

The boy didn't stop till he reached the spot where his father had been standing. There was a sad curiosity to the small boy as he crouched down and picked up what his father had abandoned in the grass. It was his silver pocket watch on a matching chain. He knew it well, his daddy had never gone anywhere without it. His mommy had made it for him when they were young and his father had carried it like a totem wherever he went. Tiny little fingers grasped the ice cold pocket watch in a small fist.

He remembered the last time they had come here. It was a bit hazy, but he did remember the picnic. But if he could choose one memory that he might never lose it was the one that had been made here. He'd never forget the day his mommy had danced with the leaves. The tight spins of her white linen dress as the autumn surrounded her, twirling and floating in the chilled air like some great choreographed performance. Her long curls capturing the leaves as the wind sounded through the trees, dancing to nothing, to something that only she heard, that she knew. He guessed his father hadn't forgotten it either, that moment when she became something more in his eyes, something not special, but magical. That's why it had to be here, not just any place, but here. Her remains were to be carried amongst the branches and leaves, forever to dance like she had on that one perfect autumn day.

As if roused by the spirit within the smoking timber and metal, a strong wind came swirling from the west. A tide of loud rustling of branches swept all along the tree line of the clearing. It was applause of an adoring audience calling for an encore to the rising smoke that touched the outline of the full moon. A single tear fell freely from the little boys eyes at the sentimentality of the moment and all the little memories that broke his heart in sight of his mother's unmarked grave. All he could think as the red, orange, and yellow leaves of autumn came floating to the clearing once more, was how much he wanted her hugs, her tilted head, confused frowns, tightening cheeks … He wanted all of it.

The boy only wanted his mommy back.

A large hand reached out from behind him. The callous palm and cold fingers gripped the narrow shoulder of the small child. Tear stung eyes turned to meet the man that he knew was waiting. His matching green eyes were tired and worn beyond their years. He had a stubbled beard and his hair seemed disheveled. The grief and madness within reflected in the rugged appearance. But even when lost in the blackness of his worst fears, there was a dignity and strength within the man that he cursed. For it was a strength that helped him carry on one day at a time, living robbed of a family that once surrounded him and a love that completed him.

For a long moment the small boy thought that coming here, seeing this, exactly what his father didn't want him too, would land him in trouble. He was ready for the passionate snatch of the scruff of his neck, the angry command for the boy to look the man, the hard lecture of what he did wrong. Though there were many of passionate lectures to come over the years, it would not happen this night. The tall man instead knelt in front of his child, coming to eye level with glassy eyes. He saw the sadness within his father, as he felt it inside himself. He looked down at the trinket in his hand. Opening his small fist he held the pocket watch to the shell of a man. It had been his prized possession, one of the only items made by his wife on the earth. To the boy it was too precious to be left forever on the floor of some forgotten forest.

The man reached for the watch, but halted. His hand shook the closer he came to touching the item, but he never did lay his hand on it. Instead he placed the outstretched hand back against his forehead and closed his eyes. The man feared that even the brush of skin on the cold metal would unleash all the crippling emotions that he had buried and burned away with his wife's body. He gave a deep shaky breath before he opened his eyes again. For a long meaningful moment they rested on his son offering. But instead of taking the item, the man reached out, his hands pushing back the boy's hood, freeing his grown black curls. Retrieving the watch from his boy's hand finally, he took the chain and clasped it together again. But instead of his own, he looped the silver watch around the boy's tiny neck, letting it lay against the child's breast. A tiny hand reached up and clasped it again, looking down at his inherited watch one more time.

There were no words then, no proclamations. The man in Sarah Connor's double breasted mahogany coat simply held out a hand toward the boy. Little green eyes looked from the outstretched hand to the watch, then back. The watch was part of an agreement, a promise the he would never again part from it, to wear it in remembrance of a shared wound that would never heal. Determined green orbs of a raven haired child took all he could of the large hand, giving it a shake.

As a father hoisted his child up into his arms, walking away from the last of their old life, the solemn night sky above was suddenly filled with motion. The sullen quiet of the forest was broken by the rumbling noise of jet fuel and smoke trails. Great shadows darkening the tall tops of trees, shaking the ground in their passing as the silhouettes of giant rockets emblazoned with Russian symbols crossed in front of the silvery full moon above. For miles and miles the roar of mighty explosions could be heard from the other side of the echoing peaks beyond as the sky glowed with fire and death.

That terrible night father and son made a silent vow like a knight and squire of old. The flaming pyre that consumed the one they loved the most was their altar, the ash their anointment oil, and the smoke their holy incense. They alone, the last of a family, of a legacy, would continue on till this grievous atrocity had been avenged. They would fight till all of humanity was saved from the terror that was created in the name of peace between human and machine. Together or alone they would never give up, never let go, until the endless paradox of death, destruction, and loss was finally ended once and for all.

* * *

"_Father, I have failed you for these last twenty years. Now our misery can end. But I need you. I need you, please, father … __**Guide my sword**__."_

**-Inigo Montoya **_(The Princess Bride)_

* * *

**_Acknowledgements_****_ to:_**

_"Guide my Sword By Mark Knopfler"_


	2. Chapter One: The Woman

_**San Francisco **_

_**1975**_

_There was a cool breeze that caressed and stewarded the masses of people that wandered through the neon lights that shaded the sidewalks of the city by the bay. It was more than just a pleasant night. It was the kind of night that you opened your windows to, sat on the front porch and crack open your favorite book, call up your girl and ask her out to your favorite spot to propose marriage. The light kisses of the pleasant weather, the history of the old streets humming off the crowded sidewalks, and the shops advertising the same unique merchandise in the storefront windows. No one out in the heart of the city —the bay salt whipping through their hair, and the smell of traffic and Chinese food in the air— no one could deny that there was some sort of strange magic working its way through the town on this night. _

_The sounds of a city echoed through the starry and bustling atmosphere all around. The honking horns, the revving of engines, the thousand indistinct conversations, and the tingles and jingles from the store doors. All of it called to the normal Saturday evening that could be found in this part of town. The young exploring the shops, the old going about the evening schedules they have kept for decades when they had discovered the shops and eateries in their youth. Older men and women in their fedoras and pearls walking arm and arm, their love dimmer, but never to be parted as they passed the girls and young men looking through the windows and the glass counters at the jewels and real estate magazines. The promise and hope to a future beyond the poverty of youth sparkling in their eyes. Hand in hand, boy and girl make promises that may never be kept or remembered many years from now. But for tonight, those words would never be forgotten when so much life was ahead of them in the possibility of tomorrow._

_Yet no one on this perfect evening batted an eye to the rhythmic clacks of little shiny black shoes on the cracked pavement. A blur of long curls and pea coat sprang through crowds, splitting couples, and nimbly weaving around benches and public trashcans. Unconcerned eyes watched from sitting and static positions with mild amusement for only a moment before returning to their own business, as was the custom of any urban environment. Strobing bulbs of the theater marquees, and the active neon flashing above shadowed and colored the glistening tears on a young girl's milky cheeks. She bumped and shoved her away through the crowded sidewalks earning curses and snarls as she flew without abandon in a dead sprint. _

_No older than six years old, this living porcelain doll had long tresses of black curls in tight regal ringlets tied by a virginal, white bow on the top of her head. Her pale face shadowed in the alley she turned into. She was breathing heavily, fear gripping every fiber of her being as she desperately fled from it. Dirty water and slippery muck stained her shined shoes while splashing through the dark narrow space. From her right to left stacked crates of alcohol and other inventory sat in reserve from the bars and restaurants that lined the downtown miracle mile. Above she saw red lights sitting in the upper apartment windows and metal grated stairs leading up to the second stories. _

_The little girl had become so distracted by her new claustrophobic setting that she slipped in an open pothole lying in wait in the untended asphalt. She gave a cry of surprise as she spilled to the ground, the sound of expensive thread ripped to accompany the painful smack and scrape of the fall. Immediately the little black stockings had tears, and blood welled from the scrapes on her knees. A streak of dark brown slime slashed across the chest of a lacy white dress. Her face fell as she sat up straight and looked down at herself. She was filthy now, and she had ruined her dress. It was enough to make her cry. _

_The flicker of movement caught her eye from her left. Buried between two large stacks of crates were two shadows rustling and overlapping one another, oblivious to the girl's presence. A tan skinned woman of Asian descent leaned back against the cold of a brick wall. She was dressed in an opulent silken robe of bright red, a yellow and black dragon slithering around its waist. A bare breast with an ashy nipple peaked out from the open clothing as she lounged back, easy smoke rings spewing out of brightly colored lips. Pressing against her was the large frame of a black man. He wore a purple pinstripe suit, his shoes white and black. Leaning on a moderate stack of empty crates next to them was a bejeweled cane, and an audacious wide brimmed hat with a matching feather. The bald dark skinned man's close-cropped beard scratched at the nape of the Asian woman's neck. From his throat, hungry aggressive noises could be heard. They were emotions that didn't seem to be shared by the Asian woman who took another lazy draft of a cheap cigarette. Through the slow gathering clouds of smoke her golden eyes fell on the little girl still lying on the ground. She didn't speak, didn't draw attention to the sight of the young child dressed clearly for the wrong side of town. In the gathering haze of smoke that spewed like a chimney from her open mouth, the girl became frightened by the long blank stare. In the obscurity it looked as if her blank eyes were slowly becoming slit like a reptile. The emotionless woman's face began taking the same likeness to the dragon on her robe. Her eyes starting to glow a familiar … __**machine**__ like red. _

_But before the girl could look any deeper into the growing unnatural, something inside her belly turned. Over her fallen figure, a tall, shadowed silhouette was growing. Someone stood at the mouth of the alleyway. She couldn't make out anything distinctive about the presences except for the glint of the marquee lights on a pair of eyeglasses. She was suddenly filled with fear again, the same that had brought her to this point now. Instinctively she fumbled for the item next to her. It was a porcelain doll, dressed in high Victorian style, her face cracked, her tumbles of auburn hair caked with alley muck. She held her dolly to her chest and found her feet. A playful voice called to her mischievously, covering a deep-seated wrath underneath as it echoed through the narrow space. _

_The back alley led to a narrow path between rusted gates of small, low-rent, whitewashed houses. They were cheap, rotted homes built during the expansion years after World War II. In the subsequent era since the homes had become dilapidated, and fallen to disrepair. She sobbed as she continued on, her soles clacking away on the dusty concrete. She nearly fell again as a hound dog, all black with a cataract clouded right eye came racing up next to her. It met the rickety fence that separated them with an angry rustle. His barking was loud and aggressive, the demeanor not frightened or curious, but angry and dangerous as it snapped and snarled at the fleeing little girl._

_Emerging from the narrow passage between rundown houses, she appeared on a chalk white street. The noise and motion of the downtown area was snuffed by the suburban silence of the old neighborhood in which she had found herself. Behind her was a row of the old, decaying, ground level homes. But surprisingly, across the street was a section of old Victorian mansions that seemed at least ninety years old. Their exotic colors chipped and weathered with time; their appearance drawing direct lines to the early years of a city's history. They were certainly not the first homes built, but one might consider them the first true houses that brought a small port town into a larger world. In their heyday they might have been sparkling examples of a worldly city trading with the markets of Hong Kong and Sydney. But almost hundred years later, the homes seemed shambled and forgotten, only a block from modern life. Their lawns were overgrown, and weedy. Their cast iron bared fences off angled and rusted. It had been true that there was some strange magic working its way through the buildings tonight. It was like being drawn to a far-off light, your imagination teeming with possibility of what the brilliance might hold. But up close where the origin of this feeling was, the girl felt it twisting her insides, knowing that it was all coming from this place … and it was a fool's gold, for under its shiny exterior hid something black as night. _

_The same mischievous crooning voice carried on the wind to the little girl. From the exit of the alley a tall, lanky shadow in a knee length blazer, bowtie, and glasses stood under the spotlight of an ancient street lamp. There was something off kilter and malevolent in his amused grin as he spotted the girl standing alone in the middle of the street. The terror and dread of the sudden embodiment of every nightmare she had ever experienced ran through her. She could feel him hold her down, work his will through her, make her do things she never dreamt of doing … especially to the people she loved. She had this one moment to flee, but no matter how far she ran she couldn't escape him— his cold and angry voice whispering such horrible intentions as she drifted to sleep._

_Standing apart from all the houses in the neighborhood was one that didn't take on a Victorian architecture, but that of an old southern gothic mansion. It was a tall two story, made of chalk white stone. A matching stairway leading to the front doors was flanked by towering Roman columns on each side that held up the edge of the massive roof. Above the brittle, stained glass double-doors was a marble balcony on the second story that looked out over the large front of the home. Something about the grandeur and size of the manor reminded her of her own childhood home and drew the girl toward it. _

_An unearthly wind kicked up, swirling a collection of fallen autumn leaves of reds, oranges, and yellows all around her stained ankles, sticking to her stained skirt and coat. Gasping desperately, she leapt up two steps at a time toward the front of the mansion. Her breathing was ragged and cut short as she sprinted under the shadow of the balcony to enter the home. The combination of oak and custom stained glass made it nearly impossible for a girl so young to pull open the doors. But fear and adrenaline rushed through her system and her small victory was announced in the unoiled creek of the hinges as she squealed in the use of all her strength. Slipping through the crack, she immediately closed the door behind her with a clank. _

_She thought, at least for the time being, of having in her possession a moment of safety. She leaned against the heavy doors, her slender hand resting on her heaving chest, new tears staining her fair cheeks. But just as she tried to catch her breath, a horrible sinking from her chest into her belly came over her. She had thought that she was safe, but when the stale smell of neglect, and the taste of dust was in her mouth she knew she had made a terrible mistake. _

_The lobby of the mansion and the large expansive sitting room had no sundries, no rugs, or carpets, and no furniture. It was completely bare but for the hunter green, soot contaminated drapes that hung adjacent to the brittle windows. Stripped of everything but the thick wooden floor boards, sanded of its mahogany finish, the floor and walls were adorn with dungeon cuffs and dark age chains screwed to the foundations. The black haired girl began to hyperventilate at the sight of mounds and mounds of skeletons still in captivity. The blackened irons rusted by blood, still clamped to fractured wrists of intact skeletal remains lying on the floor, and propped against the walls. In her fear she had fled back to the place she didn't want to be, that she had tried to escape from time and time again. _

_With a gasp she began to run again. Away from the horrible sights that plagued her every night, always coming after her, in every happy memory of her childhood she tried to hide in. __**They always found her**__. The girl fled deeper into the mansion, away from the skeletons of a far flung future. She turned corners, her shadow leaping through gaps in the wooden beams of a torn out wall. Her little shoes thumping over dusty boards. She didn't stop till she reached a lone corridor, past a downstairs washing room. _

_She skidded to a halt at the opening to a room with a descending wooden staircase shaded in a pitch black abyss. The aged off-white door leaned open, the loose hinges made it wobble as limp as a drunk, banging back and forth against the wall. There was a dollhouse next to her—a replica of the home she was trapped in—sitting on corner table. She began to shudder violently at the sheer sight of the black blanket in front of her. The little girl would go anywhere; do anything, as long as she didn't have to go down there … anywhere but __**the basement**__. _

"_No!" _

_She heard the squeal of a door at the other end of the stairs. Then there were feet, just feet. They were slow taps like a heartbeat, like the rattling chains of a damned spirit in a Dickens novel. From down below they methodically made their way up toward her. Each placement echoed with a squeak of aged wood, each mounted step like a tormented cry for mercy. She would pray, beg, and hold tightly to whatever she could find. But cold, lustful hands would always take her in their grasp and carry her down into the dark depths to poison her with the relived memories that made her go away … helped something else, someone else take her place. _

_The girl had to get out of the house, had to get back to another yesterday in her mind. But when she turned, the way of escape was blocked. The tall stickily figure of her tormentor stood hunched, a fist grasped in his hand. He was a stately and intelligent looking man of high breeding and even higher education. His face was distinctive with a protruding chin and hollow features. His smirk was never predatory, never aggressive. It was a mild mannered gesture that exuded a primal sense of arrogance and progressive condescension of one who knew he was always the smartest man in the room. _

_He bowed in order to come eye level with the girl. "You ran again." He whispered gravely in an intellectually concise English accent. He nodded as his face took a mock seriousness in the furrowed brow. "What did I tell you about running?" The voice he chose to address the girl was like that of a chastising parent. _

_Filled with resentment toward the way she was being treated and the feeling of fear of being cornered, the girl lashed out. A glob of spit smacked the Englishmen's glared lens glasses. The primal aggression on the girl's face was not one that any at the age of six could know. That kind of anger and hatred was reserved for tired souls who knew years of pain and loss, who lived each moment in fear for many years. _

_There was no anger in the man's demeanor as he straightened his back. He smirked mildly at the girl's actions. He removed his glasses placing them in his breast pocket. "I told you, there's no use in disguising yourself." He suddenly kicked the girl in the gut with a polished business loafer. She let out a gasped growl at the explosion in her stomach. Knees buckled with a thump of hard wood, she cradled her stomach, drool leaking from the corner of her rosy lips. "No use in hiding …" He grabbed the pretty girl by the bow in her long ringlets and smashed her face first through a wooden beam. For a long moment she was planted to the boards before she finally slipped to the floor. Blood ran down her nose in rivers as she fell flat on her back. _

"_You belong to me now." His temperament never broke as he observed his handy work. _

_She spat blood out of her mouth like an experienced prize fighter, instead of an aristocratic tot. "I'll never belong to you." The proper English accent she had been speaking with went away, and another darker, older voice of an polished accent that covered the distinctness of the one she used to speak with in youth took its place. _

_There was amusement in the man's face at her response of defiance. He leaned down again. "If you wanted to fight, you should've chosen a different newer __**memory**__ to hide in." He removed his glasses again and from his breast pocket he removed a silky item to clean them with. "I did warn you …" he paused to look at the top of the dark basement steps. _

"_No … oh no, no, no, no!" _

_A figure appeared out of the darkness. She was a very stern older woman with hard wrinkles around the corners of her mouth and eyes. The wrinkles would have been more front and center had she not pulled her main of tangled silver hair back into a very constricting bun. Her looks suggested that she might have been a great beauty once, but now a lifetime of displeasure had drained all the light from her. "What have you done to yourself … oh my poor, poor, yummy girl." There was something maternally playful and cutesy about her usually refined and elegant voice as she made a perfect spectacle of the sight of the girl on the floor. _

"_No, no …no!" The girl cried at the first sight of the woman who had emerged. She was fell upon with a barrage of playful kisses all over her face, pressed down on the dusty floor by cold bony hands that found their way to her soft dress, caressing her stomach intimately. _

_The old woman only shushed the girl between wet stringy pecks. "Oh … look what you've done to this dress." She clicked her tongue at the girl in disappointment. "You're just so filthy, filthy, filthy!" Her hands began to slip the girls shoes from her feet and coat in succession. "You're such a dirty girl, my princess." She cooed with eyes that stood contrasted of the voice she used. The old woman's hands diligently unhooked and zipped the back of the lacy dress with an obsessive compulsion and uncaring manner for the girl's decency. "And what do we do with dirty girls?" She asked almost manically. _

"_Please, don't …" the girl with a woman's voice begged in a deep depression of a long lost part of an unhappy life of wealth, high society, and secrets locked in the darkness of lavished bedrooms. _

_Skeletal hands squeezed the girl's cheeks together almost viciously, clamping her mouth shut. "Hush!" The old woman snapped possessively. She was a woman who always got what she wanted, no matter the cost, and the girl, who she dotted and worshiped, was no different. When she had gotten the obedience she wanted, she proceeded by lifting the soiled dress over the girl's head, tossing it to the side. "Dirty girls need baths, Princess!" She announced with an inescapable darkness hidden underneath her loving voice, like a crocodile under a pond of lily flowers. Without missing a beat she scooped the girl up in her bony arms and turned on a heel toward the pitch black. _

"_No! Not down there! NO!" A now lean figure of a grown woman, disguise shed, struggled fruitlessly as the crone descended the steps with her helpless prize. The woman's terrified and desperate protests echoing off the walls were deluded with the drifting notes of a __**classical piano**__ from the abyss below. Suddenly all noise was finally stifled by the sound of a door slamming shut from __**the basement**__._

_For a long moment the man in the bow tie stood in the halls of his gothic mansion. The silence echoing through the dust and decay of a sand strewn tundra of a dead city going on endlessly from the view of the broken windows. "If you run you only make it harder." He finished his thoughts. Placing the glasses on carefully, he glanced at the dollhouse. _

_The final act of "Giselle" came, hummed from his hollow throat as he gave a wistful move of graceful ballet interpretation toward the play set. The table scraped when he turned it so that the inner workings faced him. He moved his head with the unseen notes of the music in his mind as he reached inside. His thin, delicate fingers extracted an item that had been lying on a king size bed. It was beautifully crafted doll of a ballerina. She had satiny chocolate hair in a tight bun, her face paled like the moon, with life like golden eyes that seemed bereft of emotion. His loving and caring digits felt up the white wedding dress she wore, letting the sinfully soft material sooth his cuticles._

_Indifferently, the man began to hum louder as a tortured scream pilfered from the black lodging. He just simply stroked the doll's hair venerably as the voice trapped below called out a single name in her fear and shame. _

"_John!" _

* * *

**Chapter One**

_"The Woman."_

There were places like this all over the City of Los Angeles. These establishments tucked in corners in the dirty grimy alleyways in North Hollywood and behind warehouses on the docks. Made of cheap tinder wood, they sat like eye sours around the dusty deserts and mountainous terrain outside the city. They were the cheap bars and dives, not the expensive meet ups and hot scenes were reality stars, and A-list actors go after hours on Beverly. These were the lowest of the low, the dusty and dirty joints that no one wanted to go if they could help it. But with this crowd … it looked like they hardly had a choice.

There were pendants and championship banners from professional sports teams that gathered dust behind shut down pinball, and roller ball machines on the wood paneled floor and walls. Whatever this place was now, it had started years ago as a sports bar. But hard times had made it change hands, and themes. Places like this were revolving doors to ownership. One business owner can't pay, and the bank sells to another, machines, decor, and sundries included. Somewhere down the line of owners since the early 80's they forgot or found their caring wanton as what this place was supposed to be. There wasn't a cute theme, or a real purpose to a place like this. That is, beyond the obvious. They served hard drinks for hard luck cases that wanted to get hard drunk fast. That was the nature of these places, the nature of this city built on material dreams.

Suffice to say that this was not James Ellison's kind of place. He had grown up in Georgia where there were a thousand shacks and rundown biker haunts like this all over the cotton and peanuts covered back roads. His grandfather and his great grandfather had died in places like this. Sometimes he wondered if it was why his father was so hard on his children, on James most of all. He got a whipping when his report cards didn't have A's. He couldn't even remember the first time he had his first cigarette, even now when he smelt the tobacco in the air, he could see his daddy's fist snapping back to strike him again after the initial shock of the opening blow. Daniel Ellison wanted his children to be righteous, to be good. He wasn't sure he could sit with his wife and watch another member of his family get put down by the state.

To most kids this would make the other side more attractive, to desperately seek the unknown, the forbidden. But not James Ellison, from his pastor to his coaches, to even his training officers, they always said of the man that he was a good mold. He was a model student and he carried lessons in and out. He let them shape him into who he was. All his life he respected the law, as he did his father's desperate discipline. Between his Mama's bible, and daddy's hands he thought himself an instrument of Justice. It was an old arrogance carried by devout men of every religion. They did not question their obedience to God, and their purpose in his plan. For the Lord's will was righteous where ever his path may lead, as long as they follow.

But lately James Ellison had found a different path, a back road that he walked in the dark. Many nights he spent with his bible studying, wondering, and searching for salvation from the conundrums that haunted the still of his humble home and the sterile environment of his work office. There was darkness in his mind that sat heavily on his soul. It had been a year since he discovered the truth. It was a truth of Machines, Messiahs, and the end of days. He sat long into the night and wondered, and prayed on what it was he would do, what could he do? Forever did he fear of turning into Peter Silberman. The former Chief of Staff at Pescadero who had took to murdering hikers, and kidnapping people out of fear when James first met him. It was the fear of Sarah Connor's prophecies of the future. But for weeks and months Ellison knew that he couldn't just sit around. He couldn't wait, checking the bones, burying the bodies when the smoke cleared on the battlefields of a covert war that was yet to happen. But when he was deepest in his lost state of mind his salvation came. She came.

_The Woman _

He wasn't sure how she found him, but she had. He knew it wasn't the first time that she had been to his home. Opening that door he knew what he expected when he found her standing on his front porch. He expected to be thrown around, choked out … they found out about Cromartie. But _The Woman_ told James that they needed him, she needed him. For a long time he hadn't thought her human, it helped not to think of her like that. But he wasn't ready for her to come to him in that moment and show how vulnerable she was. How impossibly wrong he could've been about her. _They_ didn't understand her the way he had, she told Ellison. They didn't have the heart, the capacity for what had to be done. For a moment he thought she had come to the wrong house, if she was asking him for help with her mission. She shook her head, told him that she didn't want him to kill anyone. She just wanted information. She told him that she knew about Cromartie, knew what he wanted to do, and then she told him what his boss Catherine Weaver wanted to do with the machine.

After that he promised to help her.

The weeks and the months went by and she stopped by every Friday night. He'd tell her about what he could learn, who was operating the basement levels. Her face was stoic, nodding once or twice. In a strange way it had become a regular thing, three maybe five hours after work. He started making her dinner, not sure if she ate … what he ate. But she didn't complain, and she didn't refuse. It had been so long since he had a friend, and even though what they talked about was life or death, and it was _her_ he was talking too … he liked it.

Ellison gave a cough and mistakenly took a helping of rank dust from the wood paneled dive in his lungs. To make matters worse, a strong flop sweat beaded his bald head and ashy brow. He reached down under his arm pit and scratched through the material of his starched white button down, beads of blood staining the inside. He had always wanted to vacation in Mexico, but after what happened in Dejalo, and this nasty skin infection that wouldn't go away. At this point, after needing steroid injections for the Anti-biotic, East LA is was as far to Mexico as he wanted to get ever again.

He looked at the collection of neon signs and stared blankly into the spot where all the neon lights came together. Golden flecked chips of green and blue. It reminded him of _The Woman's_ eyes. It reminded him of how stupid they made him feel when he offered to show her a movie he rented. She glared that stoic, guarded frown at him, reminded him that she didn't come over to watch movies. He put it in anyway while he let her nose through his notes and observations of what Catherine was doing down there. She'd look up now and again and he even saw her smile once or twice. It was the first time that he had truly realized just how beautiful she was. After that she was no longer opposed to movies or opening little by little of her life to him over wings and pizza. It seemed almost healthy … as healthy as she could be, given who she was. He'd like to think that his home was a place where she could be herself, whatever or whoever that was.

But it eventually grew more than that.

The first time they made love it was like getting hit by a hurricane. She was like a force of nature when she was in his bed, leaving marks on him with her nails, and wanting him to leave marks on her. She promised that no one would see them by the time she got back. When they were done he'd be exhausted, and all he wanted to do was sleep. But she was never tired, and he began to wonder if she ever slept. He fell in love about the time she got up from the bed, wandering around unashamedly naked. There was a glistening sheen of heavenly sweat on her smooth beautiful body illuminated by the late wisps of evening sun. Ellison watched her pick things up, and try things on with curiosity. It was like she was looking at the mundane, every day thing for the first time. It made him wonder how long she had been living this life or if she always had. There was innocence to her curiosity and it made him love her even more.

Whirlwind was how he described it. The whole notion, the idea of what they were doing, what they were trying to stop. It should all be ludicrous to Ellison. And yet The Woman made it seem so romantic. When he had been married to Lila it was a quiet love. Lila was fun and happy, but career driven. After the chaos of a case she wanted a nice quiet night with a book and chest to lay back on. But with _her_, James had never felt more alive. He had never loved deeper, had laughed harder, and made love more passionately. She was like a fire, a flame of righteousness. The desperation, the spontaneity, the do or die of all her and James's plans and fears made the colors brighter, the sunsets more beautiful, and the nights more mysterious. Somewhere between looking into her stoic eyes as she shuttered from the throws of her last climax of the afternoon, and watching John Henry's development day after day. It had gone from a mission to preserve all of humanity, to just wanting to protect her, this woman he had pegged and feared as one thing long ago. He no longer thought about Messiah's and Machines. When he went to work, when he took information, he only thought of her.

And it scared him.

He'd open the drawer next to his bed, where he kept his grandmother's bible, his condoms and the nine millimeter and now he realized it might be all the same thing now. He knew what _The Woman_ was capable of, he'd seen it first-hand. The bible had warned of selfishness, and the repercussions of the great sins he was committing. In her hot embrace as she rode him, her glassy eyes looking through him as she gasped softly he'd told himself that they were sinning for the good of all. But nowhere did it say that anything good ever came from the sin of the flesh or of the barrel of a gun. She had assured him from the beginning that he wouldn't hurt anyone. But somewhere deep in his mind he knew what her intentions were. They were the same from the first time he saw her all those years ago. James Ellison's ignorance was gone and he knew now why they did it, her and her companions. But did that make it right? Was he doing the right thing? Was it selfish for loving her, and was this shadow of greed damning his soul and all of the people's he worked with and saw every day?

But what shamed him most of all even after leaving the house with her still inside, lying in his bed, it was that he had broken his father's rules. Cast away his hard teachings and turned to the bottle for the first time in his life. And all of it for one pondering query that he already knew the answer too. Was she actually capable of loving him, loving him the way James loved her? But most important of all was simply this …

Had he thrown his soul away for this woman?

* * *

Out on the water waves came on and flowed out in a rhythm that was timed to seemingly nothing. It was possibly why many found the ocean to be a comfort through hard and anxious times in their lives. There was seemingly nothing that drove it, nothing that held it back for long. And all the great sea had was time. It put a man and his trouble in prospective when sitting at the shore and looking out at the vast empty spaces beyond the coming and goings of barges and large ships from port. It wasn't a typical evening that touched the California sky. It was soft and clear, a peaceful coagulation of autumn colors and violet that was so clear on the surf that it was like a rolling wash of two skies that seemed to meld together that went on and on, beyond the horizon.

While on the rocky shores the sound of commotion of a busy Friday evening rushed over the serene calm of solitude. Strings of lights on the marina and the active piers came on to wink and twinkle with enchanting patterns, their reflections in the water was like a fallen star field in the receding tides. The nightly calm brought with it a unique gleaming portrait of a city of metal, glass, and concrete's lights glimmering in the calm Pacific waters. It was a cornucopia of color tonight, oranges, reds, purple, and all to the twinkling lights dancing to the obscure music of a radio in the distance. Sitting in the medium of natural and artificial beauty which man had wrought was like greeting an old friend to darkened emerald eyes.

It was a trait that not many possessed, to find the beauty and unique nature in all things. But it came second nature to John Connor. Since he could remember the youth had always seen the world differently than most people. In a childhood spent alone in motels with infinite time on his hands, John had learned to enjoy the simple things. He learned how each of their positive attributes and little miracles helped him. In a life in which he was supposed be afraid of everything, he had learned how to think beyond fear, and how to control his environment, to make use of everything around him. In doing so, he used each small moment to make his life better, to find the sweet spot and hold onto it.

To most people, behind him was a mismatch of glass, concrete, and metal. The city was jagged and ugly like the granite jaw of a hungry mythological beast. A dirty ocean of contaminated water, filled with sea weed and litter. Beyond it was an eye sore of a marina and crowded piers, horrid examples of extravagant wealth, loud mouth breathers, and obnoxious horns of large ships steaming into port. It should be the perfect picture to the bitter of an awful city. But only a man like John Connor could find a place somewhere were each factor met and within it created something so profoundly beautiful where he may make his home.

John wasn't particularly a positive person, and he knew too much of the future to be optimistic. But in a world of tragedy and loss, his only saving grace was to find whatever happiness and beauty he could squeeze out of his survivalist, drifter life, and marry himself to it.

Perched on the rocks he waited patiently, solitary amongst the pairs and groups of shadows and silhouettes that moved in his vision on the piers and yacht decks. In the time since John had arrived in 2007, he had longed, even before that to be a part of those groups. To be normal like all of his peers, flirting, laughing, and being happy. But recently he had become the opposite of that longing, embracing the label he had always been known as by others. In the months since he had thought "_her_" dead and afterward in danger of being murdered, John had to deal somehow with the misplaced anguish of those weeks. Somewhere deep inside himself he had touched a true darkness in his despair and fear. He had become dangerous and out of control in his hunt for the killer from the future that had come for the cyborg girl he loved. In his rage he had permanently maimed and crippled those he thought were his enemies and those who stood in the way. It all ended with the brutal slaying of the monster at his hands in a savage fight. Afterward, even in peace, you cannot touch the kind of darkness the youth had and simply go back to who you were, what you were. The hatred, the fear, and the desperation that turned to vicious rage, he wore all of the effects like a visible facial scar. His friends and family could tell there was something different about John, even if they couldn't put their finger on it. He seemed darker, more mature … tortured.

That was why his mom had encouraged tonight, thought that it would be good for John to get out. He was supposed to meet up with Morris and a couple of his cousins, pal around the peer, and ride the Ferris wheel. John left the house, but never showed up. He went to a seaside diner ate lunch, picked up a few things for the computer, and then he waited. Here by the rocks, John Connor waited as he had many nights. He fielded texts and phone calls from Morris. . "She" showed up looking for him, wondering if he was there. But then they weren't complaints from Morris, if anything they were courtesy calls from the kid to John asking if "She" taking his place that evening was cool. The youth didn't want to say yes, but he couldn't say no. No was a dangerous word, no was suspicious, no brought up questions that were circumvented to mothers who knew when something was going on under her own roof. Yes was not what he wanted to say … but it was safe.

With a glower he looked out toward the piers and the stands beyond. He could hear the laughter from where he sat. In his vision he could just make out the couples draped over one another on top of the large neon flashing carnival wheel. Somewhere Morris was in there, being himself, being the kid that made him John's friend. The youth knew that he would use all of that charm on _her_ tonight. She was already his prom date and he would try so desperately to make her more than that. He'd take her on the Ferris wheel, buy her corn dogs, and fail miserably at knocking down cups with whiffle balls. John wasn't stupid. He knew that she would never fall for it. But deep down a part of him wished that he could be out there, that _they_ could be out there with everyone else.

What he would give for just the novelty of placing his arms around his lover in a photo booth, for John to win her a stuffed animal in a marksmen contest. Or more likely she would win one for him. Throwing the blanket down and listening to a free concert, looking to the stars as the music washed over them. Her head laying against him as they counted constellations. But life had seldom been that easy for him, for them. For now and maybe for many more years to come this would be his life. Pretending to be the errant brother, the no cares roommate, the casual friend. Meanwhile he would wait on these rocks, knowing how he felt was so much more than that. But his emotions had to be hidden from the sight of others, like they always had been since that one question in Red Valley a thousand bullets, and imagined futures ago.

But this time it was different, this time he had been gratified. For just a moment he held his lover too close and knew what forever should feel like. It was like letting a thirsty man have a sip of water in the desert and letting the rest of the canteen tip over into the sand, making him watch the sun dry it all out. Some nights he thought he might go mad in his room, knowing she was just an open door away. But somehow he held on, like he always had. This wasn't the first time that John Connor had confronted the lonesome and solitary feelings of waiting alone in the dark evening for the one he loved the most to return to him after a night of entertaining another man. There was even a small part of himself that wondered if he had always been here waiting.

As he looked out toward civilization, which he had momentarily been distracted by, a figure walked across the shortened beach. Slender, stiff, and oddly graceful, she skimmed the surface. Her long legs carried her along as if she was floating, despite the deep impression she left in the soggy sand that was soft as a cotton pillow under her bare feet. Her long locks of straighten hair fluttered in the wind as she looked out toward the ocean and the painter's sunset that fired the last colors of the day. But when she became adjacent to John sitting above on the rocks, she paused. He felt her eyes on him, before he ever saw her. She was a presence he could feel in intuition that he couldn't explain, and that she herself doubted when he told her.

His head snapped back to the beach and found the lone girl standing below him, yards away. He didn't need the moonlight falling over her waterfront silhouette or the salty breeze caressing her hair to know the kind of beauty that had found him in his usual spot. They locked eyes, and even in the gathering darkness he was hers. He couldn't pin point if it was the setting of their meeting place somewhere between the sea and the stars, or it was just the smell of the night that got under his skin. But the girl had him in a trance.

Yet, instead of coming to him, she simply continued onward. He watched her leave a trail of perfect dancer's foot prints on the beach. The trajectory led to the forest of rotted wooden columns underneath an old abandoned peer. Standing on the edge of that forgotten place, she turned back to the young man on the rocks and enraptured his attention one last time, before entering. For a long moment John sat by himself, bereft of sense. It was as if he had been hit by a tranquilizer. His brain was sluggish and swimming in the intoxication of a calming drug. When he came to he was looking into his lap.

Slowly a large grin spread across his face.

Before leaving his perch, he gave a thorough look around to make sure he wasn't being watched. Coast clear, he hiked down the rocky seawall, landing with a puff and a crouch when he leapt off half-way down. Following her foot prints toward their usual meeting place, John kept a close eye on the rock line behind him. He was always aware that he might be followed by a host of people or other with ill or misplaced intentions.

He could smell the damp, salty, mold that always hit the senses hard. It should be unpleasant for him, but there was so much good that came from it, that he welcomed the stench of the unused pier. It was stuffed with old newspapers from the late 20's and other garbage pushed by the wind. It was dark underneath the wooden structure, but he went inside fearlessly, his love baring him with mighty cables toward the one who had tied them. He stepped over rotting cardboard, broken surf boards, a bikini top styled in the sixties, covered in decade's worth of grime. He placed a hand on the hollowed wood for support as he moved toward the end of the pier. At the edge, where the sand and ocean touch, the last several boards above had fallen away leaving a sunroof through the rotted frame. That's where she waited for him.

Cameron was standing as straight as a board the low tide rushed over her bare feet and ankles. She was looking out toward the horizon where the low hanging moon sat just above the water line. There were times in people's lives when they wished they could take a picture of a moment and keep it with them forever. Though knowing that it could never capture it as perfect or profound as what they saw in that moment. With the moonlight shimmering off her perfect peachy skin and glimmering in her golden eyes, John Connor couldn't think of one thing in the eternity of time that could ever be wrong or despicable about the love he had for the cyborg.

"I wasn't supposed to leave early."

When she spoke there was no emotion behind her voice, no inflection. "But I told Morris that Sarah demanded that I return home." She didn't turn to face him, and John didn't approach her, He took his time admiring the picture she posed against the setting. She was like a dream that he didn't want to wake up from, perfect in every way in his eyes.

"Why?" He asked watching the skirt of her white dress flutter in the wind.

This time she did turn to face him. She gave a rare blink and observed him with all the naivety in the twitch of her head of an avenging angel fallen from her heavenly sentry. "Because I knew you were here, alone." She replied.

He wished he hadn't, but he replied with instinctual anger, almost defensively. "Why? Thought I was vulnerable to attack?" He sniped at her possible reasoning.

She didn't seem to respond to his tone. "Yes …" She agreed softly. Then, the girl turned back to scanning the ocean.

He suddenly felt so self-conscious about himself. John Connor was his mother's son and often had a short and defensive temper. Whenever it surfaced it was often met by his family with counter snaps or hard glares. All that resulted was bickering or arguments about all things big and small. But for the Cyborg, she never met John's inherited temper with anger, never snapped back. She took it, a face the mask of naivety and innocence, as if she couldn't understand why he was angry with her. It used to make it worse. The girl had her ways of making flaws shone in the light with her passive attitudes.

"And because you were here, alone …" She repeated, her voice this time having something in it that was softer, the ghost of longing. She turned back to him. "I didn't come here to be entertained by Morris." As their eyes met the wind kicked up. Her hair was tussled forward, glossy strands framing her blushed cheeks. "I came here to be with you." She finished with a hard sincerity that punched John in the heart.

For the young man's part he had always been like this. Even when he was small he always punished the only woman he had ever loved when she returned after being away for so long. It took a night, a day even before he'd come around, to forgive Sarah for leaving him. But eventually waking up, seeing her there, her arms holding him … the love in her eyes. He could never punish her for long.

But tonight John Connor didn't have a night, he didn't have a day to punish Cameron. He only had these few precious hours when the world thought that they were at the pier or on the road home. He only had now to be with her, to shed this blanket and let the truth have its moment.

He stepped forward as if racing the seconds themselves. His callous hand reached out and gently brushed her soft hair behind her ear. His palm fell low to cup her cool fair cheek that felt like silk against him. It had occurred to him only now when they prayed for just a few moments alone, how little of it they had always had. Before they surrendered to destiny it seemed as if it was a slow torture to have so much time for themselves, alone and longing. Now it seemed what felt like eternity was actually only a few moments in real time. Now that they were alone with not a soul around them he put forth all the longing and need for her in a kiss that captured her lips.

It had taken time, a trial by fire, for the girl to understand this form of affection. John always had an abundance of patience, but he would admit stolen moments were ruined now and again by the cyborg experimenting rather than how a normal girl would have an intuition for her kisses. He had become frustrated with choking on a tongue, or his lip being bitten causing his curse to be loud enough for Derek to come see. He had the unlucky fortune of getting slapped by Cameron to cover the bloody lip with the excuse that John said she'd look fat in leather pants. But this time she had found the right placement and the right amount of force, and give. Her plumped glossy pink lips tasted like wet cherry, tasted like all of the hopes and dreams of what the future should be.

After a long moment they broke apart. When they did there seemed to be an enchantment carried by lapping tide, the night air, and the impossible love that the human and cyborg felt when they looked at one another. They didn't take even a split second to let John catch his breath. Almost immediately, he wrapped his arms around the ballerina's waist, her arms slid around his neck. They crushed against one another. John's maturity of body and spirit showed when he lifted the killing machine off her feet. He spun her in a circle just once like he always did. When they halted he buried his face in the crook of her neck with a smile. The girl looked satisfied, pushing her head against his.

There was something intoxicating, exhilarating, and potent proof about the forbidden nature of their love. It was the week's longing, the quiet traded looks across the table, quick kiss in the shed, holding hands in the bathroom for just a moment or two before Sarah passed by with the laundry. All of it building over days and sleepless night to that final moment when they could take refuge in their secret meeting place, to be together. To have just an hour or two to wrap themselves in a lifetime's worth of love.

They kissed again, it was shorter this time, their lips smacking as they broke apart. Golden eyes watched as John buried his face in her chest, breathing in the scent of her sweet perfume. Her slender fingers threaded through his hair watching her lover with an unreadable expression. John never now how deep and satisfying the belonging and purpose of this moment was as it flashed through each wire and processor in her one of kind chip.

BUZZ!

BUZZ!

The cyborg's head snapped like a bird of prey to John's jacket pocket as it buzzed. She looked back down to John who placed a kiss against the peachy skin of her chest, seeming to ignore it. "John …" She alerted him. He shook his head.

"Let it ring." He muttered into her skin.

BUZZ!

BUZZ!

"John." She replied again, looking down at him. "It could be important." She nagged, but allowing him to capture the supple skin of her throat between his lips.

"It could be mom telling me to get dinner." He kissed her cheek.

But before he could capture her lips again the girl craned her head back away from him. She didn't say a word, just tightened her cheek as her golden eyes met his disapprovingly.

BUZZ!

BUZZ!

With a long sigh, he kissed her soft throat again and set her back down into the sand. With one hand he retrieved his phone, with the other he continued to hold her close. As he answered, he shot an incredulous glare at his companion as she watched with anticipation. He was met with a beeping combination of code, to which he matched accordingly.

"_John?" _

"Yeah, mom …" the minute he heard the tone in her dark brooding voice he shot daggers at Cameron. Seeing that glare, the girl innocently looked away. Her hands clutching his old battle damaged black field jacket in her grip, taking in its familiar must.

"_Where are you?" _

"The pier." He leaned down and smelled Cameron's hair as she listened to the phone conversation attentively.

"_You're with your friend, Horace?" _

John glared. "Don't get cute. You knew the name of my second grade teacher's mistress." He chastised. At this Cameron twitched in eyebrow in interest. John kissed it.

"_I didn't trust her." _

"You didn't have too, if he was hiding her from his wife, odds are mom, that he's not going to bring her to school."

"_I don't like secrets …"_

At the admission, both John and Cameron shared a dependent look. For just a moment John felt ashamed of the game the two of them were playing with the family. If his mother or uncle knew what they were doing, it could get more than ugly. It could get very deadly. He knew that Cameron was in his head, when she attempted to take a step back. John didn't let her.

"It wasn't your secret to know." He argued as if they were talking about something else completely. To prove the sentiment he pressed Cameron anew to his chest, kissing the top of his lover's head.

"_Anyone who is in our life, I make it my business to know." _

John grinded his teeth and was about to respond to a clearly baiting authoritative tone Sarah used. But before he could answer, Cameron touched his chest. She gave a shake of her head. As an infiltrator she could easily pick up on voices and pitches. She knew almost immediately that Sarah was starting to become suspicious. John gave a long and agitated sigh into the phone, a slender hand resting on his heart as it thumped hard in anger in his ribs.

"_John?" _

He reached out and cupped Cameron's cheek, rubbing a thumb over her solid cheek bone. "Yeah …" He was only momentarily distracted by the contact, addicted to just being able to touch her.

"_I know that you're with your friend, but I need you to come pick me up. I'm in Burbank."_

John frowned separating from Cameron at the admission in alarm. "What the hell are you doing so far out there?" He asked in confusion.

"_John, I need you to come get me."_

Sarah Connor sounded uncharacteristically harsh over the line. The attitude she hit him with made her son defensive. "Why didn't you call Derek?" He asked hotly looking to Cameron longingly. Deep down he had a feeling their hard won, and long anticipated time together was slipping away like the tide at her feet.

"_He's stuck at the house … Cameron took the truck this morning, and we don't know where she's gone." _

He wished he hadn't, but the youth rounded on the cyborg immediately. John trusted her, he really did. But in the back of his mind he couldn't help but ask the old questions that often plague him. Where had she been all day? And what was she doing?

Sensing the suspicion Cameron reached out and traced John's temple. The soft, and strategic feeling of her slender fingers on him was like sunlight parting the threatening storm clouds in his mind. He let out a long sigh in her touch.

"I'm sure she'll show up." He smirked knowingly, turning his head into her open palm.

"_I'm sure …" _

With all his will he tried to make time for the feeling he didn't want to give up in Cameron's arms. But suddenly a question began forming in his mind that he couldn't shake. "If I have the Jeep and Cameron the truck … how did you get to …?" He started.

"_John Connor, I won't tell you again … __**Now**__!" _

He rolled his eyes. "I get it!" He snarked with a vicious snap. It was the first time in months John actually sounded like a normal teenager. He shut the phone with a clap and entertained Cameron with the frustrated motion of attempting to throw it into the sea. When he was done he sighed, and returned to Cameron who greeted him with a consolatory kiss. He buried her into his chest with a tight squeeze.

For a time they were quiet. John closed his eyes, absorbing everything around him. He could hear the sound of the gentle waves lapping close, the smell of the evening, the chill of Cameron's bare skin. For just a moment he held the girl too close, took too much of her into his heart. It made him sick, made him weakened in the knees knowing that they were out of time and yet, he couldn't let her go.

"We should go, John." The girl pressed her forehead to her peer's.

Emerald eyes welled with tears at the phrase. He shook his head, his eyes closed. "It's not enough time … they didn't give us enough time." Who "they" were was up for debate, Sarah and Derek, or the powers that be. Life seemed hard enough as it was living and sleeping under a time bomb that so few people knew was about to go off. But to live everyday under the same roof with the one you love and not be able to touch her, to hold her … Some mornings left John sore and aching.

Just when he was ready to resist the notion of leaving this spot till death, two hands reached up and framed his stubbled cheek. Dark, tormented eyes opened to find Cameron watching him with just a hint of sympathy. "There's next weekend and every one after that." She comforted. The emotionless, steady, unwavering assured statement gave the youth just enough strength to let go.

Fingers intertwined, the two teens returned to light from under the darkened remains of an old pier. They walked slowly back to their separate vehicles. The lovers savored the last moments of looking out over the shimmering water, reflecting the moonlight as they tarried hand in hand.

In the distance a tall silhouette stood against the back drop of glimmering city lights, concrete, glass, and metal. The figure was unseen as he watched the secret lovers retreat back into the moonlit beach as the boy halted their departure to catch one last glimpse at the silvery orb that lay parallel to the water line as if it was being raised from the oceans depths. A single grimy boot was perched on the retaining apex of the sea wall while shadowy eyes looked heavy and haunted as they watched the teens. From a coat pocket of beaten leather the man brought to light a pocket watch looped around a chain of tarnished silver. The old talisman seemed to have seen its better days many years ago. Scrapes and age was beaten all over the thick protective cover. Carbon scoring and fire scorches obscured the fine craftsmanship.

Thick grown out raven curls fluttered in the breeze. The moonlight highlighted a thin diagonal facial scar across one of two emerald eyes that watched as the boy brought the girl toward him with one last parting kiss. The two figures cast large shadows against the white washed sea wall as they came together. The man above lowered his head at the sight and closed the old pocket watch in a fist emotionally.

He gave the lovers one last longing gaze as they departed their separate ways into the night. When they were gone he looked out toward the horizon.

It was the feeling of the metal against his palm, the salty wind through standing buildings, and the sight of two opposite beings that should be enemies in the embrace of a secret, but true love. And it was this place, this glimmering, ugly skyline. As he slipped back into the shadows, he could feel all of this time period, in the air, in the taste of his mouth, and in the smell of the night. In them was every forgotten memory and emotion that crowd around him and filled him with a reminder of an old vow sworn long ago.

Like it was yesterday.


	3. Chapter Two: City of Angels

**Chapter Two**

_City of Angels_

Cold neon lights reflected off puddles on the sidewalks outside of the all night dives, and the barred and shuttered store front windows. Los Angeles, an idealized paradise in the light of day to the dreamers, a haven to the artist and big thinkers congregating to build monuments to themselves in the fountains of youth of entertainment. But at night when the world should be asleep, it became something else. A town of zombies and slaves, chasing the vices that helped them acclimate to the truths of the realities of this life they've chosen. The disheartened and disillusioned wandering the foundations of their ruined dreams toppled by the consistency of the word no. In the darkness it was a dirty place that hid its termites and roaches well from the suckers and idealists that would buy a one way here. In every dark alley, in every poorly lit street corner, the city was rank with lonely hearts, bad intentions, and desperation.

In this mismatched skyline filled with towering glass spires reflecting thirteenth floor gargoyles of abandoned deco buildings standing forgotten like eroded prison towers. Where billboards for a reality television star's fashion line overshadowed acid rain washed murals of sailor, soldier, and pilot saluting an ancient war bond advertisement. Here in the darkness of this town the past and future walk hand and hand through each grimy, trash strewn, and dangerous back alley. There was something about it that couldn't be pegged. All around the world, in every continent and country each city has its problems- its pros and cons. But somehow Los Angeles' problems seemed to intermingle with the success that brought people here in droves every year. Thus, everything good was mixed with pain and trouble; every evil and terrible act had hope attached to it.

In a town full of immigrants from all walks of life and parts of the world with the hope of a break-out role, screenplay, or even just to eat that night, each one of them brings their own tragic story to these gridded streets with Spanish names. The old saying was dreams die hard. But here on these filthy sidewalks where tall buildings erupted from their roots like a glass and metal jungle filled to the brim with all sorts of wild animals … Dreams were only a part of what dies here. In Los Angeles you couldn't step into an alley or enter a bar room without tripping over a beached hope - a fallen star wished upon by some broken dreamer.

Eventually they all end up here. Surrounded by tall buildings and ancient mission cathedrals, stands a single, towering, white stone art deco bastion lost and unseen in the iconic skyline. It was the one place where the true face of every inequity of human misery and suffering produced by this awful city could be seen within every wing and room, like a perverse art gallery. This place wasn't a private clinic on Beverly, a gated office in Malibu. This tall building was a monument to reality, its halls filled with the truth of everyday life. Its sterile white walls and cold corridors echoed with busy footsteps and pages from the PA system. There were few places this late at night that were this busy. The Central City Hospital would always be one of them.

Down in the basement levels of the hospital it was a different story. There was a chill that filtered through these dark abandoned halls in the dead of night. If you could avoid coming here, and most do, you would. Some call it creepy, some call it a waste of time, for those who are admitted to this wing with the flickering yellow fluorescents above and the silent halls would find no consistent visitors here. No boyfriends with flowers, a pretty girl tracing you nose as you awoke, a mother crying in a silk hanky over a broken leg. The only visitors here were the butchers and the lawyers, come to make sure what to expect in the lawsuit as they carve out your cold heart from your chest to make sure it was your fault it stopped. Not that you would care … you're already dead.

Colder than an ice house and quiet as a church, there was an inherent darkness to the Central City Morgue that gathered around the edges of what little light could be found within. From the floor, silvery flood lights rose to the ceiling, bathing the rows of metal slots and the eighty year old gold crucifix on the tile wall in strange shadows on their shiny surfaces.

But it wasn't the death that bothered Doctor Felicia Burnett; it was the isolation of it all. The desolation of knowing that there was nothing more to this room than there would be to a meat locker in Pittsburg. This wasn't a room filled with murder victims. They weren't normal lives cut short by the heinous actions of the one or many. It was the inevitability of knowing that every person in this room died of natural causes, died because it was their time. It was proof beyond a shadow of the doubt that all of us were truly mortal, and that no one gets out alive.

It should put everything in prospective for her every time she comes here, her nightly visits. It should convince her that she should get out there and make her mark. To move on from this life and go do all the things she wanted. Use her grandmother's pottery secrets she bequiffed to her all those days after school in the Arizona heat, and open her own business. Take her savings and go to Norway, Holland, see something amazing. Meet a man there, muscular and blond. He could whisper sweet nothings in her ear as he makes love to her. To sleep in his big Viking arms and feel safe.

But it doesn't come.

Night after night, Felicia Burnett comes to this morgue and sits on the slab where "she" had been. It was the counter where the doctor had saved a life and took another. She sits there and stares at the brown stain where a dead body had lain. She can still see him there. She can still smell his after shave; see the sweat stains under his arms from a long frolic in the desert. Her shift ended hours ago and yet she still comes here and struggles to understand what had happened in those few minutes. She struggled to understand why she did what she did. No one blamed her, no one prosecuted her … they found the restraints in his closet, a collection of her bloody panties in a box, and the scars from his lash on her pale back and studded paddle marks on her bare rear end. No one blamed her, said it was right … her sister told her it was about damn time that she did it. But why was she still here? Why couldn't she move on? When she slept she dreamt of the pistols recoil, the black hatred in Alvin's shocked expression as he died, and green eyes … always green eyes of a sweat soaked woman so beautiful and tortured that lay on this table. Those eyes that drew Felicia in, made her trust them, made her feel protective of this vulnerable creature. This woman told her story, which was Felicia's, and the doctor never looked back.

Some would say the emptiness was shock, was the guilt of what she had done. It was the realization that she had a life of her own for the first time since Santa Clara State. No. It wasn't anything of the sort. Felicia had shot a man, killed the man she loved, all for green eyes. She basked in their fire, felt the desperation and the seriousness of the web she weaved for the doctor who would've done anything for them. Being in the wounded woman's life even for that instant made her feel like she was doing something, something important, something life changing. That sweat soaked beauty had shared her life, her compassion, and her deepest moments while on the cusp of death with Felicia and then she was gone. The resident had been a part of something mysterious, something so important and now that she was gone, those green eyes left a crater where the mundane of her regular life working toward her mundane goals had been.

Doctor Felicia Burnett could go anywhere or do anything she wanted. But it would never be as important, intense, or emotionally capturing as those few hours had been. As she slips off the cold slab and walks out, she thinks of Holland to make herself feel better. Tomorrow she would be back, forever in thrall to green eyes, a fake story, and the names Sarah and Reese.

The door swung open, letting flickering yellow light inside, as she switched off several over heads. The pretty blond in the pony tail, long sleeve, and scrub pants took a good look at the stained linoleum, said a deputy's name like a curse and walked out. The heavy metal lined door swung back violently, before caught by the air. It didn't slam, the door only clicked with a heavy thud. Once again the world fell into a still, sullen quiet.

Suddenly there was a jump of shadows, and something moved in the dark from the back of the morgue. It's hard to see, and even harder to know if it's the trick of the fluorescents outside or just a flaw in the flood lights below. You'll know there's something there when a figure passes over the silver light. It was present three minutes before Felicia Burnett arrived, and stood unseen in the dark till she was gone. The obscure shadow stopped in front of an examination slab and a hand turned on the overhead light with a click. Hardened emerald eyes were glinting and reflected in the light as they look down on the naked body that lay half covered by a linin shroud. The body is a bald black man, whitened lips of death, stiff limbs, and a blank expression on his cold face.

His name is James Ellison, and he died of a heart attack last night. That's what the world thinks, that's what they know. But it takes someone from a different one, a time yet to exist to know it's something more than that. Green eyes, familiar to a haunted doctor, narrow as they rake the body observantly.

The dark avenger didn't know much about the victim and James Ellison was hardly known to the his mother and father when he died. So there weren't any truly accurate pictures that he could rely on. There were records, personnel files, federal performance reviews. But fifteen years in his father's army had taught the detective that bureaucracy was hardly a trustable source. So, he would take what he did know and walk back from there.

James Ellison was a federal agent, which meant he was college educated, a pre-law degree. Not a lawyer, but must have worked for the District Attorney's office here in city before Quantico, so the school must have been in at least Southern California. The tales he had been told of Dejalo Mexico in his childhood labeled Ellison a deeply religious man. He must have _loved_ this town. All those factors meant that James Ellison was an ambitious, arrogant, assertive man that was used to being the righteous authority he respected like a god. He was, to his beliefs, this demi-god of righteousness for nine years, the first two he was a rising young star, smart and dogged. The next seven he became a pencil pusher. Some burn hot in the spotlight, and combust at the change of temperature. That fair weather changed to a hurricane that came in 1999.

Every detective has that one big case that eludes them. It's the one that got away, the one murder that wakes each one of them up in a sweaty mess, all the while dazedly stuttering out names and details. For James Ellison it was eight years ago, and her name was Sarah Connor. The vigilante knew better than most that chasing the ghost of Sarah Connor would make or break a man. And like so many others before and after she had broken James Ellison and ruined not only his career, but the man himself, forever. For the Detective, his Black Dahlia would always be his first, and it would be his last. Someone had murdered a little boy's mother in cold blood when he was too small to understand why, and it's a question that would elude him all his life, till tonight.

Time to begin.

Many years later that now grown child lowered the overhead more. The LED made the frozen corpse almost shine in the harsh illumination. The man was easily in his early forties, wrinkles around the eyes, and forming at the edge of his mouth. They were more prominent, he had more stress in his life than most, the torment of a hard job, of personal guilt, all of the above.

Immediately the vigilante noticed big red patches all over the man's ashy skin of his shoulders and chest. They ran like skid marks down his right side. It seemed that Ellison had contracted a very bad skin rash. Following up, he noticed the sunken and dark circles of sallow eyes forever closed. This man had been very sick when he died. There was also a strange substance that stained the broad man's brow. Reaching into a well-worn coat of beaten leather, he retrieved a Zeiss magnifying glass. Though the instrument, his _mother's_ last birthday gift to him, looked like an antique, the craftsmen's authenticity mark claimed that it wouldn't be made till several months from now. Squinting through the lens the Detective saw that there were salt calcifications on the man's face, most notably his forehead, tear ducts, and temple. When Ellison died, he had been sweating profusely. The quick preservation and freezing of the body had caused the sodium to solidify and stain on the skin.

The dark figure began to pace away thoughtfully for a step or two as he began pondering. James Ellison had died of a heart attack, sweating was obviously a symptom, nothing out of the normal. But the skin rash and dark circles were not. The former FBI agent was obviously suffering from a viral infection. The vigilante had seen it before, down in Mexico during the war. Most of the detachment had contracted it when they got back to Los Angeles. It was easily treatable with antibiotics and a round of steroids to help it keep up with the contagion cells that multiplied quickly. But he had never seen it ever get this bad, not even from the local populations. This was a technological age, a less dire time period than the one he had grown up in. How did someone working for a six figure tech corporation not find treatment?

Tugging on his chin thoughtfully his eyes narrowed as he looked back at the body in puzzlement. Maybe the best answer to that question lay where he had died. Slipping out of the light and toward the back of the morgue, the man grabbed a white trash bag with a black symbol on a red field that signified medical waste. Moving to an empty slab the man dumped the contents of the bag on the shiny metal surface and flicked on another overhead. In the LED light a pile of clothing lay bunched together. He rubbed his soul patch thoughtfully a moment observing the clumped mess of the skeleton of a stiff formal work suit. Grey slacks, a starched white shirt, matching business socks, and expensive loafers.

Pocketing his magnifying glass, and with a snap of a white latex glove, the man began rubbing his gloved hand against his cotton long sleeve till he could feel the static at the ends of his fingertips. Taking hold of Ellison's suit pants he gently ran the gloved hand over the length of the backside of the gray slacks. When he was done there was a dark powdery substance offsetting against the white medical glove. Gently, the detective rubbed his fingers together, granulating the coarse powdery coding between his index finger and thumb. He gave it a whiff as he continued rubbing it. He smelt saw dust and peanut shells. A theory that didn't make any sense began forming in his mind as he dumped the pants back on the table.

Next, he grabbed the man's shirt and held it up to the light. It was perfectly starched and ironed in extraordinary lines. A picture of James Ellison's past began to form. Only a well-practiced housewife could iron with such precision. This was a clear sign that James Ellison must have been taught by his mother how to iron, which meant that he grew up in a traditional family. He'd be a man who would have a moralistic view of the world through the prism of Southern values and protestant faith, a combination that made a cop from the moment he was slapped on the ass in the delivery room. Speaking of slapping, the detective knew also that it spoke volumes that men with a snappy fashion sense, who went to mechanics, and knew the finer secrets of laundry, spent much time with a mother. In a traditional family with two parents it was obvious that James's father didn't like him very much or that his mother was trying to protect him … either way it was an abusive childhood. Possibly it wasn't the slap in the delivery room but of a father's hand that made young Ellison carry a badge.

Like the powder on the glove, he gave the shirt a sniff or two. It was stained with the stench of Sweat, cigarette smoke, alcohol, saw dust, and just a hint of a sweeter scent that tickled his memory with static that couldn't quite form a picture in such a weakened state. He shook it off and focused on what was right in front of him. James Ellison had breathed his last breaths of life on the floor of some shitty Hollywood dive. Smoke and alcohol confirmed the dive, and the wood mulch had the particular scent of the old movie sets that a little boy had played on in the snowy abandoned lots in Studio City after Judgment Day.

It was a strange change for a man like Ellison who would be by all accounts a creature of habit. Even if divorced, the former fed was still married to his evangelical roots. This made visiting a bar not a rare occasion with a social call, but alone at a seedy dive a very uncharacteristic one. There were two things that could drive a man to places like those … He had been fired or he felt guilty. It certainly wasn't the later. But what was it that James Ellison could feel guilty about that it drove him to drink?

The Detective knew about the North Hollywood raid, it was the first thing he researched before coming here. Cromartie, the Boogey Man of every scary childhood story the old man had ever told him, had slaughtered 20 FBI Hostage Rescue TAC team members, including one of the supervising officers. The man's heart didn't go out toward the former FBI Agent, the moron wasn't thinking. The truth was right in front of him and he didn't have the wits to see it, though he'd bet Ellison does now. Being the last man standing, the lone survivor … its hard living down. A lonely station, filled with endless nights pondering what you could've done different, and second guessing every move you ever made. There was guilt to it, but if Ellison had lived this long without going to a bar than certainly it wasn't survivor's guilt that landed him there last night.

He turned the shirt over in observation as he thought. It was when he saw the extensive brown stains within the shirt that he was intrigued. At the bottom right, inside the button down, touching the rib cage, was dried blood stains streaking over the expensive material. They were in scratching patterns, a nail digging into the material and chaffing it against irritated skin. Of course he had a skin rash, and it must have been torturous, judging by how bad it had grown on him. But he didn't see any open wounds. Placing the shirt down, the Detective returned to the body. With a flutter of the death shroud he folded it down to the man's hips. A sudden cringe and tightening cheek met the new sight.

All around James Ellison's rib area there were fields of tiny boiled cysts, and swollen patches of infected skin. It ran up from the waist to the length of his collar bone. It wouldn't be that hard to figure out what gave him the heart attack. An infection this bad must have sent the poison through the blood stream and caused his heart to seize up. Sweating, itching, and aching, it was a horrible way to die.

He followed the sores and infected skin down to the scratch marks, and noticed the nail pattern. Despite all the other areas on his body, this was what he was scratching the most. It started to make sense when it seemed that the entire area seemed swollen and ugly, more so than any other. He drew his Magnifying Glass from his coat's outer pocket and used the lens for a closer look. It would've been impossible to see without magnification but now it made sense. All along the ribcage area where each swollen cyst had formed were needle track marks. The cure for this illness was antibiotics and steroids injections. It would seem the victim was following protocol, but for the fact that if he were injecting steroids into his body without the medicine it would only grow the infection more and more till eventually it would break him down.

James Ellison had been a dead man before he even walked into the bar. That's what the butchers and lawyers will say when they open him up. Their doctors would not be liable for the man's honest amateur mistakes, and it's not their fault that he didn't pay attention to what he was doing. Officially it will say, without him knowing it, James Ellison had been slowly killing himself for months.

Or someone had.

The Detective's mind wandered back toward the sweet smell that he could almost taste on the tip of his tongue. The memories lingered just out of his reach like swirling fog. It was a certain perfume, maybe even a lotion, or hand cream, feminine. And then it hit him. He still had no memory of the scent but it belonged to a woman, a woman preying on a broken man's sympathies, a woman who wanted something from him …

Lying here on this morgue slab in Central City Hospital was the pebble in the pond. The ripples of last night's murder would not stop till three billion were dead at the hands of a vengeful AI seeking justice for a murdered friend. The girl, along with many others before her had been killed by a shadowy figure whose assassinations were covered by a perfect ambiguity as she dooms the future.

Long ago Ryan Reese Connor swore a vow that he would never forget, never forgive, and never stop till he had avenged his murdered mother. For twenty-seven years he had carried that anger with him through battlefield, investigation, and fights. He kept on even when others retired and deemed the war over. He didn't stop till he had hunted down and dusted every last one of them, each one he missed, every psychotic, mutant, and machine who had killed his friends and family. Now standing in the dark of a cold morgue many years from where he started, surrounded by death, he had come full circle. There was just one left, the name that started it all, the person he vowed to kill before he even knew what death was.

La Llorona … _The Woman._

* * *

Far away from skyscrapers, apartment buildings, and chain super markets there are homes built into the sides of arid mountains and wild hills all along the Southern California terrain. They belong to filmmakers, actors, actresses, their agents, Plastic surgeons, and well-to-do business associates. For years and years since D.W. Griffith brought his flicker to this one horse town of cattle pastures and old missions they have cropped up in many places. Communities like Laurel Canyon, Beverly, Bel-Air, Westwood, and the Hills. They weren't like other neighborhoods, the comings and goings of nine to five work days in Malta, a fight with the spouse immortalized in the press, the Times knocking on your door for a statement when your kid with the first ex-husband is caught dealing pot on Sunset.

These places were hardly real life, but a life of privilege and illusion. These were homes that belonged to those who had made their mark on current society and held the keys to the kingdom that they brooded in guilt about. They swam and swarmed in the cultural zeitgeist in abundance, in adoration, and felt a sense of community … like a school of fancy fish. They smiled while they sniped at one another behind their backs, and talked of business and politics. It was more business than politics. Politics was for the most part assumed. It was a silent agreement that anyone not on a coast and below Washington DC were childish, ignorant, flag waving savages that needed _their_ special insight. They all lived in an awful country that is there shame, despite the opportunities it gave them. And most of all they believed that there should be more diversity and racial tolerance. This is all said as they roll their eyes at the Hispanic waiter who offers them food, offended that he didn't know of the special diets they were on for a multi-million dollar TV show being shot next summer in Croatia.

Tonight, a contingent of these people had congregated to the rustic hills above a glinting city of Angels. It was a home surrounded by lush trees that almost seemed Technicolor during the day, but for tonight they were strung with large bulbs of festive white lights. Beyond a black iron gate was a large two story recreation of a traditional Italian villa. A red tile roof, white stone steps, and a grandiose backyard. It's a lively place, filled with Beatnik acoustics, excited chatter, and fake laughter. The tables were set with expensive wines, outlandish cheeses, and other dishes that one had to have a special pallet for. That is, a pallet made of green paper and dead presidents. This place oozed money, it oozed pretentiousness … This was Hollywood.

But this wasn't like the other parties in Hollywood. This was a special party, for only the special few. The invites were sent via e-mail. It started with ominous music to a black and white animated map of the United States. The animation didn't look cheap, and Walt Disney would've been proud. Suddenly the country is grabbed by a fist and crushed. It was a knock off of your standard propaganda film circa 1938 Berlin and 1961 Moscow. New York City ablaze, The White House being overrun, all of America doomed in this Disney animated apocalyptic nightmare. But what caught everyone's eye wasn't the animation, or the vague message, it was who was doing the destroying. As the stars and stripes burn away, the enemy, who were locked in square legion formations and goose stepping down Wall Street, were thousands and thousands of robots. They weren't the usual type of machines either, the out of this world science fiction Cylons. They were frightening metal skeletons. These Human like aggressors had large lipless rictus grins, seemingly emotionless and, yet gleeful to dominate all living things on earth. At the end of the video it asks in bombastic black and white who was going to protect you from what was coming?

It was reposted and went viral within minutes and was rebroadcast by cable news channels, even a thirty second spot on ABC Nightly News. The buy in for this meeting was modest at best, but as interest sparked it turned into a nation-wide bidding war of the richest and most elite of the top one percent of America. All of them interested in what it meant and what the party was all about.

But as the son of a Detective Lieutenant, the Grandson of a Police Captain, and LAPD in his blood going back all the way to the 1930's when the bank got the family ranch in Texas, Derek Reese could smell a Hollywood scam a mile away.

He had hoped full heartedly that they had gotten past this fly by the seam Marlowe bullshit that Sarah had gotten into after Mexico. At first he had told himself at least this didn't have to do with the damn "Three Dots" she had been chasing. But after seeing what she instructed John to pay for two tickets, he'd take warehouses in the desert than this. Derek had argued it with Sarah all day, all last night, and every day before. He had reminded her that they weren't made out of money, and while they could afford the buy in, the likelihood of them finding anything relating to the Turk seemed slimmer and slimmer the closer to the Hills they got.

While munching on rancid tasting French cheese, and watching hired Chinese acrobats spider across trees on satin ribbons, he heard a loud rip roar of laughter that echoed inside the house. It drew people away from the show and toward the open dining room. It felt as if they were all mocking the eldest Reese in his own private hell. He shifted his jaw in annoyance and checked his watch. Popping the last cube of white cheese in his mouth and tossing out the moldy one, he moved toward the house.

As he navigated through huddles of three to four people watching the oriental feats he found that he wasn't entirely unstylish for the occasion. He was informal, but still dressy with the button down, black pants, and matching collarless jacket. It was easy to assume that he wasn't one of them, but was still barely accepted. He could be a body guard or part of a security detail for some heiress, or actress. He wouldn't be the only one here. The rest of the security weren't exactly inconspicuous people, big guys, and stalky women, casual but still stiff and observant. They weren't cut for the part that they were dressed for. Luckily they weren't there to guard the house, just the people, and most of them stayed outside. No one could have a good time with someone hovering … Derek wasn't even sure how John could do it with the metal all day in the future.

Walking past the tiled patio, protected by Tuscan beams wrapped in ivy and strings of low hanging multicolored star lanterns, he entered into the kitchen inside. The villa's dining area was as big as some shacks were a family of three lived in the future, with a hundred times the grandeur. An elongated dining room table of oil rubbed cherry sat just inside of the white doors. Above a matching tile island embroidered with rose designs were racks for pots and pans. Every inch of both table and island were covered with bottles of Wine, Champagne, Sherry, bubbly, and bourbon. It was an unhappy wife's paradise. And it so happened that's what he found congregated. Glasses held to their chest, haughty laughter in the air.

The island was where a collection of women, old, middle age, and somewhere between had gathered. They were mostly blonds in shiny party dresses, slinky folds, and lots of cleavage. Derek recognized some of them from his youth, and some from the supermarket checkout aisle. But this party was hardly a star studded event. These women were famous because four months out of a year a camera crew follows them around country clubs, spa weekends and girl's nights out. All in the hopes of seeing them lie, backstab, and claw each other's eyes out. They got a foot in the door of television for being wives of money men and investors that advised Tinsel Town's talented ones. Reality TV shows bought and paid for by unfaithful men married to unhappy women who could tear each other apart and leave him alone as he hides his child support payments to the mistresses. It's not that big of a secret, and most of the wives know about it … but the fame, the camera, and most of all the wine helps them cope with a mistake made at nineteen when they thought this life, this husband, was just a stop gap to stardom.

Derek looked around and didn't find any woman under the age of thirty. That was the only thing that made him feel better about this night. If this had been a star gazing affair or worse, a club scene with wall to wall drunk debutants and studio heirs than he would've known they had made a big mistake. But this had all the makings of a business party. The wives, the booze, and their gathering meant that they had all been dragged here by their husbands ordered to attend by their clients. There was big money involved in this venture.

Derek watched from behind the flock as one of the women standing around the island was upset. She had platinum blond locks with dark highlights. She wore a blue nylon evening dress that pushed her cleavage up to her neck. Against the Tuscan whites of the kitchen the woman looked like a piece of warped wood with her outrageous tanning bed complexion. If she didn't get skin cancer when all of this is over, the soldier would denounce god.

"And … and I just can't believe it! There it is just lying there … dead!" She dabbed her eyes with a napkin and sniffed. "You should've seen its poor eyes, so red and helpless. It just … it's just so criminal!" She exploded theatrically.

Another woman, brunet, with a face pumped with enough poison to be a Geneva violation on the battlefield reached out and touched the woman's hand. "Oh, Sadie." She clicked her tongue in sympathy. "It must have been so hard, seeing that poor monkey like that." She turned to side eye all the other hens who cooed in sympathetic agreement.

She nodded. "I thought when I went to the Congo and I saw what those poachers do to those poor apes, I'd stamp out animal cruelty with my charities … but to see what happened to that poor _Albino Ape_, and outside my own restaurant!" She slapped her hand on the surface dramatically. "Who could be as cruel as to kill something so kind hearted and trusting?" She clutched the napkin to her heart. Derek took a moment to ponder how many arguments this drama queen had started over the slightest comment and ended by threatening to kill herself over the phone. She must have made her children's lives a merry hell all through their days.

One of the women leaned in. She was petite with unnaturally tight cheeks and platinum blond hair. Her long sleeve dress was sequenced dark blue. "You didn't hear it from me …" She put her hand up to the side of her cheek as if telling a secret. "But I think it might have been Mexicans." She nodded as there was a commotion of humor filled chortles amongst the housewives. The soldier figured this one was the designated idiot of the group, and he could tell why. The petite woman looked around naively at the humor her theory had gained. "What? I hear they eat anything over where they come from." She argued. The man wasn't shocked that someone like her would say that, or that all of her fellow "TV stars" were starting to agree with her.

"Well the last time I went to Mexico, I woke up next to the gorilla … and had to for the next sixteen years after."

Everyone exploded into a fit of laughter from the comment from the youngest member of the group. Derek didn't recognize the voice, but he knew who it belonged too. Long tresses of tussled raven curls were in a bun on the top of her head, while the rest fell down to her back. Her creamy skin matched the elegant folding turtleneck and a pearl necklace. She had deep, fierce green eyes that were sharp enough to cut a finger with. The natural regal beauty, even with the flaws, made her seem even more stunning surrounded in the crowd of women that were cut and filled by cosmetics chasing the youth that had passed them by.

It was hard for Derek to take his eyes off of her, and he wasn't sure why. Her smiles came easier here, her expression carefree while armed with a glass of wine. He'd never fool himself into thinking this was the real person, but it was another side of her that could've existed before all of this started when she was a teenager. And maybe a little bit of Derek Reese wanted to get to know her, buy her a drink, just to see that infectious toothy grin without an agenda behind it.

When a sad smirk touched his lips he knew that Sarah Connor was unnaturally talented at this. Of course this wasn't Derek's world. He was the son of a cop and a young woman used and abused by these types of people. He had grown up hating them, knowing what they used to pay his mother to do, and the long nights they kept his father away, cleaning up their messes. He remembered so vividly his mother pacing the floor boards all hours of the night in her nightgown, worrying, knowing the dark deeds inside these people that knew they could get away with anything in this town. But watching Sarah, he couldn't believe how easily she had all of them eating out of her palm. She was more than just a natural, it was as if she was born amongst them, and bred to be one of them. She knew how to approach them, knew what to say, knew what to drink, and how to drink it. The wives and even the husbands had all gathered around her, laughing, hanging off every word she said.

A part of that was obviously posturing and image conscious moves. It was a competition to see whoever among the women could buddy up with the youngest. The prize was showing off who was the most in touch with the younger generation. But most of it was all Sarah, her beauty, her charm, and her charisma. He'd seen it before. In the future John Connor could work a room like no one Derek had ever met till tonight. He had always figured John had gotten it from Sarah. Kyle, the saints love him, was no natural leader. He, in fact, was not a well-liked guy in the Resistance ranks. Kyle Reese was a hot headed, lone wolf, honorable, boring, righteous jackass. He tagged along with Derek and the rest of the guys, but none of them were his friends, and he didn't consider them as such. John was his only friend, John and the goddamn picture. And just like Kyle, Derek was staring at that picture for so long that even she had felt it.

Having a moment, Sarah looked up from a grin amongst the crowd of high class hens. Slowly it melted away and an annoyed scowl momentarily replaced it. The woman didn't like it when people looked at her, especially the way Derek did. She'd prefer his classic rolled eyes that told her she was an idiot or the bane of his existence. This amicable consensus of one another was comfortable and usual for the both of them. But in the private moments when the soldier from the future looked at her the way he was now, it made her feel rooted in something else. It was something intimate and familiar. It was hazel eyes that melted her soles to the ground, robbed her of the freedom to cut ties and run whenever she wanted too. There were feelings in those high beam headlights, the kind that made you think that if you died tomorrow there would be someone who cared. She had those kinds of people in and out of her life since Kyle. Charlie had been the last, and though it hurt her, she still felt she could cut and run on him, and that's what she did. But Derek wasn't Charlie, she couldn't run from Reese. And it wasn't even that he'd give chase, it's just that unlike Charlie … Sarah needed Derek. She needed him more than she had ever needed anyone in her entire life. And it made her want to love him so much that she wanted to kill him.

"What?!"

Derek gave a hard blink when a pale hand gripped his arm harshly. He found that Sarah had excused herself, and had come to accost him. Her pearly crooked teeth of English dentistry were clenched when she hissed at him.

He shook his head and cleared his throat. "Nothing" he looked away. Her angry emerald eyes were so sharp they were like a knife to his throat. Sarah began to lead them away, folding herself around his arm as if he were her escort.

"What did you find out?" Sarah asked quietly as they wandered to a dark hallway.

Derek took the wine from her hand. "Chinese acrobats don't have spines." He replied finishing the glass. His companion's reaction was predicable with an added roll of the eyes. She took the glass from his hand and rounded hard on him as she dropped it on an end table outside a hallway. But he didn't back down. Her frustration was a front and he knew it.

She paused in the dark hallway, the white plaster walls hung with plaques from the local chapter of the DNC, the wildlife preserve, and other assorted environmentalist awards. Crowded around them were pictures of a whole family with a female congresswoman with a tight unmovable face at a Northern California vineyard. Around them were pictures of a screaming flower woman holding protest signs outside an airport in the late 60's. Sarah bit her lip, crossing her arms as she leaned back against that wall.

"Well how about you?" Derek pushed. Waiting patiently, he looked at the pictures of anti-war protests with a shake of his head. She observed him ruefully, watching his classic military posture, straight with hands behind his back. She averted from his gaze as they went from pictures to Sarah.

"The host is a high class accountant …" She started. "Apparently he was doing the books for some tech company and found out that some AI prototype got stolen. Now he and his wife want to pull everyone's money together in a hedge fund just in case the criminals use the stolen goods for some big time cyber-heist." She reported. There was an edge of defensiveness to her watching Derek stare absently at plaques above her head. Impatiently, Sarah waited for the soldier to drop the hammer on her.

But Derek only made a soft snorting noise and shifted in place. "Funny how he didn't report it to the police." He mused. After a long moment, they let one another make eye contact. "Sounds like these people are about to vacate town, and looking for an early retirement from some generous donations from their unsuspecting friends." He rubbed his soul patch thoughtfully.

"It could still be Skynet, Reese." She argued. It was mostly to save pride. "He was working for the Technology Company with AI's." She mentioned with a nod. "If we press them, we could find out …" Sarah paused and set her jaw as Derek shook his head.

"It's a scam, Sarah."

"But the Tech Company robbery."

"Corporate espionage, look up Adobe and Apple someday."

"I'll just ask John … since he seemed to have told you already." Sarah sniped at the unlikelihood of Derek knowing about Apple history without story time being had over a couple of hotdogs on a park bench. The soldier shot her a glare, but for an instant despite themselves they traded a grin. There had never been a partnership that cursed and felt plagued by the very existence of one another, and yet never gained more grudging pleasure in being in each other's company as Sarah Connor and Derek Reese.

"Let's press'em, Reese."

"No, let's find a way to get our money back before they jump ship to Peru."

"Oh, Sarah, there you are!" Their hostess appeared at the mouth of the hallway. Her heels on the tile made her walk sound like horse huffs on a cobble stone street, an apt description for the woman in general as Derek saw it. They watched as she staggered over toward a wall bound Sarah talking closely with Derek who leaned on an arm anchored comfortably next to her head.

"Sadie!" The playful wit on Sarah's face was placated by a less than genuine smile as she slipped out of the private space she and Derek had created for themselves. Quirking an eyebrow, the man turned toward Sarah when he noticed that the emerald eyed woman was talking with an English accent that was highly polished and refined. It wasn't the cockney that Americans did in lampoon or for joking. It seemed so natural that that it felt that the woman Derek was talking too, with the deep, brooding, unaccented voice was … the fake one.

The older woman, held together by silicone, drunkenly clamped her arms around Sarah. It didn't escape Derek's notice that something flickered in Sarah's eyes when she did this. It was something self-loathing and uncomfortable. He guessed anyone would feel the same being pressed against two basketballs on the woman's chest.

"Everyone was wondering where you've gone." She broke the hug and placed an overly friendly arm around Sarah. "But don't worry, you're secret is safe with me." When she shushed after the statement Derek could smell the wine on her breath.

With a confused flash to her partner, the younger woman returned to the Hostess. "What's that?" She asked, clearly uncomfortable being touched.

The woman blew one of Sarah's wild curls out of the way. "That you didn't want to hang out with those old hags." She replied with boisterous sympathy.

Derek rolled his eyes at the sloshed middle age woman. "Yeah, that must be it." He chimed in with a sarcastic grunt. The drunken woman rounded on Derek, and after a moment found more reasons to dislike him from his posture and baring if her pictures were any proof of personal beliefs.

"Sadie, this is my partner, Derek Baum." Sarah introduced awkwardly.

Despite himself, Derek still politely offered his hand for a shake. Sadie didn't take it. She just sneered at it as if he was offering her an appetizer of goat eyeballs. "And what exactly do you do, Mr. Baum?" There was a snobby attitude covering a suddenly possessive nature toward Sarah.

The oldest Reese smirked privately. "Hm … dangerous question." He replied shortly.

There was a long pause before the woman let out a loud laugh. "Danger!" She turned to Sarah. "When we're young, we all live for danger, Mr. Baum." There was something strangely, albeit inelegantly, intimate in the way she looked at the younger woman. "But then we grow up, don't we?" She gave a clumsy flirtatious stroke to Sarah's hair. The woman obviously unaware of Sarah's private fury clenched in a fist that was about to strike.

"Now!" She butted Derek out of the conversation. "I just happened to have those papers you were asking about." Sweat was starting to form on the younger woman's face from some unknown stress deep within when suddenly her eyes grew wide.

Sarah's body all at once untensed. "The research?" She asked. The undercover woman suddenly looked like a fishermen baiting a hook.

"Ben said we're not supposed to show anyone yet, but I think I can let you into the ground floor … what do you say, Queen Victoria?" She offered with a bite of her lip. Sarah turned to Derek with a victorious smirk that matched the 'Fuck you' look the Berkley drop out gave the Soldier. The drunken woman didn't realize that she had fell victim to the number one rule in Derek Reese's life. Sarah Connor always got what she wanted.

There was incredulous annoyance in hazel eyes as Sarah motioned for the woman to lead on. Together the three of them traveled across the expansive living room occupied by a spatter of business men talking golf. Derek walked drag behind the two women, the drunken one spouting off to Sarah about the other women in their group, as if the raven haired warrioress would be a permanent fixture. It was the usual fair that the soldier would come to expect. Who went on a nine month vacation somewhere secluded, came back a little over weight and giving money to the producer for child support. Who was a multi-million dollar closet bisexual, and which of her husband's high profile clients liked the company of women better than their husband. They were the secrets that no one really cared about in real life, but were traded like currency amongst these people living in a gilded Camelot.

As they reached a narrow staircase made of stone tile steps, and railings of black iron, Derek hung back. He watched Sarah help the woman up the stairs. She wobbled, giggled, and finally drew an arm around Sarah as she bragged about the "Summer of Love" and all the good weed spots in town. Smirking and nodding, the raven haired mother of the future put an arm behind her and signaled with an open palm. She wanted him to wait five minutes, then go up and look around. It was astonishing and yet it wasn't how easily Sarah could gain someone's trust. There was a natural charisma to the woman that made her a confidante and friend to every person who met her. Derek thought if she were only smarter he could've mistaken her for an infiltrator.

He mounted the first step and leaned against the railing. Behind him he could over hear the conversation of two older gentlemen. Open white shirts, cabaña hats, feathered grown out locks of silver. They were the picture of a Southern California business man. But Derek wouldn't make the mistake of thinking they were idiots. Though they were talking golf, it was a pretty intense conversation. The soldier didn't understand a word of what they were saying, but he knew code when he heard it. They were talking business, and pretty serious business at that. If everyone knew what this was, than Sarah and himself weren't the only partners going after the money here.

There was a capped anxiety when he drew his phone from his jacket pocket. Two taps of the buttons and he held it to his ear. The moment the other line picked up, Derek put in the code while he made sure no one was watching. There was a long agitated sigh from the other line as the corresponding code beeped in Derek's ear.

"_What?" _

John Connor sounded edgy and in a bad mood. The boy's uncle rolled his eyes when he could think of counting on his fingers how many times he wasn't in one. It was like dealing with Kyle all over again. "I need you …"

"_Sorry Derek, but by and by my one true love still remains the sea." _

Somewhere in his mind he cursed Kyle's ashes. "Funny … I need you to run a dragnet for us." He rolled over John's smartass comment. "Bank Accounts, Social Security, Business associates …"

"_Property, clients, bra sizes … yeah I get it. Don't tell me … a lead busted?" _

Derek shook his head. "Like a GE Toaster." He sighed watching the perimeter. "Hedge fund scam and everyone here is looking to get the loot for themselves." He kept his voice down, but he could tell that the businessmen heard enough to vacate the area for more straight forward talk on the game plan. He needed to be a lot more careful dropping police slang in places like this.

"_Names?" _

"Sadie and Benjamin Horne."

"_Where's mom?" _

With a flick up the stairs, Derek shook his head again. "Trying to press a drunk desperate housewife for information. She seems to think that the cover story of some software theft from a tech company means Armageddon." He explained.

"_Sounds like corporate espionage." _

Derek's smirk was prideful hearing the teen's comment. Even self-taught, raised by Sarah Connor, a world class criminal, John still read the briefs and had a cop's intuition. Derek knew that somewhere their Pops would be proud that the Reese legacy didn't die with Derek and Kyle.

But thinking of Kyle brought out another question. "Hey … what's the story about Sarah's British accent?" He asked. From the other side of the phone the tacking of a keyboard stopped.

"_Huh? Did you say British accent?" _

John sounded shocked on the other end of the line. "She's been using it all night." He explained.

"_I haven't heard that since I was nine." _

There was something sadly nostalgic about a polished voice. What had started off as Reese asking about a cover ended with the soldier completely thrown off by realizing that it was genuinely authentic. "You're saying that it's real?" He asked.

"_It's real, though I thought she got rid of it years ago … too distinctive for the places where we lived at the time." _

"Sarah's not from America?" He might as well have been told that George Washington was French. On the other line, the typing began again.

"_She was born here, just wasn't raised here, and didn't come back from England till she went to college. And the rest as they say … is history." _

"How come she's never mentioned that before?"

"_Are you kidding? You could just about fill the Grand Canyon with the things mom doesn't tell us about her past. The only reason I know what I do is because I looked up her records at the public library when she was in Pescadero and even those __**were incomplete**__." _

It was an alien enigma to a mystery that haunted every person who ever heard the name uttered. Sarah Connor might have been the most implausible familiar stranger that Derek and the world had ever met. She neither existed before John Connor or after his ascension in the annuals of history. She was the brightest candle in the wind that existed only for several improbable flickers before being snuffed out to live on in legend. It was better this way he guessed, with no past and no future, Skynet would never get a fix on her. And yet it bothered Derek.

CRISH!

Just above the sound of hipster music echoing off the walls, there was a sharp piercing noise of fiberglass breaking upstairs. Derek immediately was sent into action, hand reaching for his Glock in his waistband. His hazel eyes were drawn up toward the shadows at the top of the stairs. He was confident that Sarah could take care of herself, but his gut told him that there was something wrong.

"_What was that?" _

Derek was calm. "Party … run the net, and we'll talk when we get back." He hung up on John. He looked back and thankfully for the time being no one was present that noticed anything. But that would soon change when the thumps on the ceiling began to pound on a rhythmic base that was bound to be noticed by someone.

He quickly dashed up the stairs to the upper rooms. The top floor was separated by two wings, with a bathroom at the top of the steps. Each wing had two bedrooms, a linin closet, and a bathroom. Derek was sure he'd never seen so many goddamn bathrooms in his life. He heard the thumping coming from the Master to his right.

Brandishing his Glock, Derek attacked the hallway procedurally, checking each corner in every room. A pink and white girl's bedroom was clear, except for a creepy gorilla doll sitting on top of the satin comforter. Grod was lucky he didn't get his stuffing inside out. The bathroom with the frosted glass shower and pharos bathtub was clear as well. Wealth was wasted on the rich.

Outside of the master bedroom was where he heard the commotion. It was a mattress that was springing up and down violently hammering the floor. For just a split second Derek's mind went somewhere dark, somewhere guilty, knowing that wasn't the way Sarah operated.

CRASH!

He threw the door open with a foot and checked each corner quickly, before moving in. The room looked like a picture in a furniture store advertisement, rustic and tropical with fake plants all over the corners. Africa or the idea of it really hit home with this Horne woman. The four poster bed with see through drapes was rocking back and forth violently, hemorrhaging throw pillows and stuffed animals. On top of the Silk comforter Sadie was pinned down, her arm twitching in helpless resistance. Mounted on top of her was Sarah. It was a confusing sight that was not remedied by the blood soaked knuckles that continued to pound mercilessly on the older woman. Blood arced into the air as Sarah Connor lifted one fist from a ruined face and rocketed another vicious blow with her other.

"Sarah!" Derek called in shock, lowering his gun. "Sarah!" He called louder, but the woman kept hitting and hitting. Finally he placed his gun on safety and rushed over to the 5'5 raven haired wrecking ball. Under tread were scattered papers of research that fluttered off the bed and to the floor.

"Sa-r-ah!" Derek grabbed her off the woman. At the sudden restraining, Sarah Connor made a frightening animalistic sound and twisted and snarled as he lifted her into the air off the bed and back on her feet. Before he had time to defend himself she grabbed his jacket and drove him across the room, slamming him into the wall next to the open doorway.

The woman was soaked in sweat head to toe. Her tight gray pants had a wet spot on their crotch where Sarah had urinated herself out of some great unknown fear that had gripped her. There were small bleeding cuts on the right side of her face where Sadie must have hit her with a lamp. But what Derek noticed was her eyes, those sharp emerald jewels were now wide and terrified, not a part of a conscious world. The woman ripped and pulled trying to get at him as a cornered animal might. The soldier drew his pistol again, turning it upside down, threatening quietly to hit her with the grip like a hammer. "Sarah! Sarah, it's me! Sarah!" He was seconds from clocking her unconscious when he finally looked her in the eye and she made the recognition. Like a fighter plane catching the cables on an aircraft carrier deck, Sarah's mind had landed in the here and now.

"Derek?" Her entire chest was heaving. "Derek?" She ran a clammy hand over his stubble and let it fall under jacket to cup his heart. He let out a relieved breath, lowering the gun to his side. "Derek?" She repeated and this time he nodded. She bit her lip and parroted the motion, a single tear falling down her cheek.

She looked vulnerable and frightened standing all alone in the middle of the room. Of all the things that she was, Sarah Connor showed in those few seconds of being completely exposed, that she was human. And that was why she came to him and crushed herself into his chest. He was cautious, but eventually he held her tightly as she collected herself in wheezed heaves. He'd like to think that he was any port in a storm, but he knew that somewhere deep inside she saw hazel eyes, Reese eyes, and she ran to them. He'd be damned before he turned his back on anyone who loved his family that much. As she burrowed in his chest, Derek watched the crumpled body of the woman lying motionless on her king sized bed as he ran his hand through sweat soaked tresses of long tussles of black curls.

Eventually it was Sarah who broke the hug, some steel returning to sharp eyes. He had gotten her back. He pushed off the wall and away from her lingering touch. The destination he stalked was where Sadie Horne lay motionless. Lifting her arm, he somehow knew there was no pulse. At fifty years old the woman had been beaten to death in a drunken mess. He ran a hand over his face, letting it rest on his chin. He squatted as if he was weighted with some unknown pressure that was crushing him. "Christ, Sarah …" he muttered to himself through hands now cupped over his nose and mouth.

"What is all of this?"

Derek was scrubbing his face when she asked the question. He paused and rounded on her from his crouched position. "What?" he asked. But Sarah Connor wasn't paying attention. She looked completely bewildered as she quietly, timidly studied their location in confusion.

"Where are we, Derek?" She turned her back to him.

"You don't know where we are?" He asked seriously, standing to full height.

Sarah shook her head. The woman for once wasn't defensive or guarded. She was simply lost, confused, and frightened. He had an idea of what happened when he saw the cuts on Sarah's pale face. Sadie Horne must have hit her hard enough with that lamp to send Sarah into a feral rage. But what he didn't know was what had happened that had caused the Housewife to hit Sarah with the lamp in the first place. He saw that whatever it was that started the fight, it was enough to scare the mother of all destiny into pissing herself. But when he saw the way Sarah was looking at him, he couldn't fault her for whatever had happened. After all the things he had done in his life, how could he judge her?

"It doesn't matter. We need to get out of here." He started moving toward the door.

For the first time Sarah had noticed the body lying on the bed. As Derek stopped next to her, he watched her looked down at her bloody knuckles. It was starting to become clear what she had done. If she was frightened before, she was terrified now.

"What have I done, Reese?"

By now Derek Reese had become accustom to those looks. From the first time that Kyle broke Mrs. Lake's window with a baseball, to Kansas bunker falling to the Machines on Wilshire, and John sitting in the cab of the truck as he was told the fate of Martin Bedell. Now it was Sarah, standing by the woman she had murdered. They had that same helpless expression. All of them were in over their head and had turned to Derek for help. That was because they all knew that Derek Reese was a hard ass that was as cold as an ice maker. They all hated and bemoaned his firm hand. But when it was all said and done they all turned to him because he could make the tough decisions no else could when it truly mattered. He had cursed being an older brother all his life till the moment the bombs dropped. Now it had become first nature to protect his family. When Sarah Connor looked to him in her vulnerability he didn't flinch away, and didn't hesitate. She was all he had, she and John. He'd protect her from anything in this world, even herself.

"Nothing anyone else wouldn't have done. You understand me?!" He cupped her cheek. Sarah was nearly despondent but she nodded all the same. "Anyone would've done the same thing, Sarah." There was a black reassurance that was as dark as it got when he saw that she had found comfort in the assurance of one who had killed before. There was enough shame and self-loathing to go around as he intertwined his fingers with hers.

Escaping into the night he reluctantly led her into the darkness and shadows of a City of Angels where in a town this bent, you could get away with anything …

Even murder.

* * *

Benjamin Horne, born, Modesto California, 1957. He stayed out of anything but the Honor Roll till the late 70's. From Berkley he became an accountant for Apple in the early days, made most of his money word of mouth. Not surprising that the companies he worked for were audited twice, once before he got there, and then again once he left. The company usually was in hot water when they hired him and got out of it when he was done. They used to call him "Merlin" a true Tax wizard. Yeah, more like a wizard in skivvy ass robes. He got into the Hollywood rackets in the late 80's, had an eye for fly by nights. He'd work his magic till the clients' accounts dried up in the process of their fifteen minutes on the Hollywood fast lane and the Feds came knocking. Horne ended up collecting the back end of "Unpaid" invoices. Clean scam. Since then he's theft up words, latching on to much bigger sharks. Steady and more prestigious clients that in public feel that the one percent owe the poor, and yet they hire Benjamin Horne to find them loopholes while they go shoot their HBO shows across the world. They're sure bleeding something, but it ain't hearts.

Sadie Jones, professional activist, Real Housewife of … somewhere expensive. She has a rap sheet of petty misdemeanors that she touts proudly to anyone that'll listen … that's a short list. She was born in Iowa in 1959. Parents joined the counter-culture movement, father moved to Canada when his number got called up during "Tet". He probably should've told his wife and daughter where he was going. Not that they'd have an address to be forwarded too. Sadie lived in the back of a van with her mother, an Aunt Sage and Uncle … Thornrose, original. They drove across America, preaching, protesting, and growing things they shouldn't. They had a merry time playing a game of 'how many people they can piss off in the country'. Aunt Sage dies when she comes down with a lethal dose of buck shot in the pelvis in Hargrove Mississippi in 1973. Killed by Doris Williamson, a seventy-six year old black grandmother of a twenty-seven year old simple boy named Ronald Williamson. Local kids were tormenting the poor guy. Sage ran them off, took him behind a local malt shop to treat his injuries and tried to pop his cherry. Love is free, until you're caught assaulting a woman's retarded grandson while on a drug high from abusing sedatives. Ugly business, Williamson was broken out of the small town jail and killed before being transported to trial up north. The mob of bed sheet wearers was never found, not surprising. They might never have loved the Space Cadets, but avenging Black on White murder was still a moral imperative in Hargrove. In 1976 LAPD responded to a call of a strange van parked outside a Burger King. Inside the back, the police discovered Thornrose, Sadie Jones, and her mother surrounded by a cloud of marijuana smoke pursuing a three way with the girl in the middle. They got Thornrose and Mrs. Jones on kiddy-rape beefs, and they've been very popular in their respective cell blocks in San Quen since. After two years of foster care and a year in Canada, Sadie Jones wised up that the hippy movement was over after being expelled from Berkley; a hard feet in itself. She ended up getting cozy with accountant Benjamin Horne at a drum circle at Steve Job's place. A life on the road had taught her being a bomb thrower doesn't mean she couldn't have the nice things in life. Horne and Jones were married in April of 1979 in San Francisco and the rest as they say … is history.

John Connor had been digging through these people's lives for most of the night. He'd found that Horne had several off shore accounts, and a shell company or two. It smelled pretty bad, but the problem was that John Connor was only sixteen, and these numbers were just as advertised … numbers. He was sure something illegal was going on and that there might be a way of getting their money back, but he wasn't an accountant. He might be able to drop by a university co-op, buy some books. Cameron could learn finance, but it would take time even for a cyborg to understand Horne's chicken scratch bullshit. And something told John that time was of the essence here.

What was obvious from what John could find and organize from the dragnet was that there was a name that kept popping up around large sums of cash from accounts that were in the red. The benefactor of these loans was Mansa Udaku. The name sounded familiar to John, so he checked the assets and found that he was a silent but big player in many activities in LA and Hollywood. For the last seven years the man hadn't missed once in investment. Every article called the man a Midas, every stock he touches turns to gold. There were some who thought he was psychic, since he seemed to be able to see the profit before there was even a market that existed.

In such a short time of being a Kingpin this guy bought up a hob knob club in Hollywood called "The Sea Court" right on the Boulevard. He owned a management firm on Wilshire for boxers, and a gym in Le Brea. There was also the talent office on Sunset for models, and bank rolling of several plastic surgeon offices around the city. You add the pawn shops in the diamond district and you got a man who has the means for a lot of things in this town. Managers finding fighters in South Central who'll take a fall for the boss, and when they wash up take thug jobs as experienced enforcers rather than limping back to Compton penniless. Girls who sign up for modeling jobs, that quickly turns to prostitution rings, with plastic surgeons that'll cut them to look like Fox or Alba for the special client that has money to buy the fantasy at The Sea Court. And of course the Pawn shops being fronts for high score and class fencing for thieves. The oldest sins perpetrated in the newest ways of this technological age.

If John was going to figure anything from this, Horne and his wife weren't looking to payback Udaku. The brain donors were trying to get out of town on the generous donations of a curious public enthralled by dystopian Disney advertising. It looks like the Horne's got in deep with the wrong guy, but a guy not made of metal or whose brain is run by server farms. The youth thought that in a just world this wouldn't be any of their business. But since his mother just helped donate to the Chinese fire drill, it just became a priority. Cameron was already buying ski masks in preparation for the bank heists in another Sarah Connor made disaster.

Three plasma screens crescented John. They blinked and streamed with spread sheets, LAPD files, and Los Angeles Examiner articles, each vying for his attention. The young man leaned back in a pleather office chair with a creak and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He didn't need this kind of stress right now and he was getting more and more frustrated as the screens flashed in the dark nursery that John and Cameron had turned into a mini office. With a squeak, the young man turned away from the desk before he smashed his screens.

It was a fool's folly to walk into this situation again. It was one thing when it was small timers like Sarkissian, But Mansa Udaku was a Kingpin. Even when they went after the Armenians it was for the Turk. His mom had now gotten them entangled in Hollywood politics and underworld dealings all because "possibly" there was a lead. He turned his eyes over toward the spot to his right. Last weekend Sarah Connor had been standing there ordering him to make the purchase for her and Derek's buy in. Behind her, his uncle was begging her not to do it … oh who was he kidding? He was begging John, the trigger man. Even from the doorway Cameron looked iffy about the whole thing. But John caved to Sarah's pressure all the same and here they were.

He felt like Derek lost respect for him that day, not that there was any to begin with, but if there was, it was on a train to Fresno. But what was worse was the unreadable look Cameron had given him as he left the room. Some people would say that it was insane to think that a machine would be able to express emotion, but even under her stoicism, John felt that even the girl he loved was disappointed in him. Since then, he'd been mad at everyone. He'd felt as if Derek didn't give him enough credit, that Cameron should trust him, and most egregious was how taken for granted he felt by the whole episode. He had gone out on a limb, bared Derek and Cameron's lower opinion of him, and all his mother did was act like a spoiled brat that was entitled to tell him what to do and think like he was her servant or worse.

He felt guilty to say that it was how he was feeling of late with his mother. The longer they spent together since she escaped Pescadero, the more he felt that he was living with some spoiled stranger. Someone who says she was there for all the important things, and asks the favors of someone who was important to him, but was only using those memories as means to an end to get what she wanted.

It was hard to believe now, but there was a time when his mother was different. Sarah Connor had always been tough, brooding, and decisive. But she was also thoughtful, gentle, and though it wasn't everyday there were times when she was even fun. When Derek called him and asked about her accent he had been swimming in memories. Smiles were easier, hugs more frequent, and love easier to find. He thought of a little boy with reading text books, sitting in her lap under motel sheets before bed as they went over it together. John learned the word, and Sarah learned the correct use of it. Flat became apartment, Lift became elevator, and no more tricking her over the phone that he had biscuits for breakfast when he had girl scout cookies. When she'd slip up mid-conversation he would reprimand her with a stern "American mamma" and she'd give him a dirty look, but eventually smile at her little professor. To him that was home, that voice, those nights spent together. If he'd known now what he didn't then, he'd let her keep that accent of hers. Because three years in an asylum for the criminally insane had returned to him a familiar stranger, who acted and talked different, if she talked to him at all without giving him orders or hell.

Both Derek and Cameron had grudged him for not standing up to his mother, and maybe he kicked himself for not doing so either. But since Pescadero, John had been waiting for his mother to somehow return from that place. He'd give her slack, and then rope, slack, and then rope, hoping that she'd pull herself out. But all she seemed to do was hang them with it. He'd placed all his hope and trust in the woman, because he always had. Remembering all the times, good and bad, that he and his mom had gone through together, Sarah had earned his trust out of the necessity of being all he ever had. But with each failure, one after another, and the darkness within him after the year he'd had, John began to wonder with a deep sadness if this was what growing up felt like, wanting back things that would never come. It was the sober realization that his mother was no longer who he remembered her being. The concept filled him with a lonesomeness that hit him right to the bottom of his heart. Because it meant that he had no home now. That John Connor was ready to take back his trust from a woman who had meant so much to him all his life.

The walls seemed so close in the nursery all the sudden, sitting in the dark, watching the shadows on the windowless room dance with each flicker of the plasma screens. He turned in his chair and transferred files to the flash drive and printed the useful documents for briefs. When he was done, he encrypted the systems, and erased his digital footprints. Then, he got out of there before he suffocated.

Out in the hall he took a deep breath and felt the weight of all his private musings and angst pull him to the boards. There was nothing he wouldn't do for some sort of reassurance or comfort. But it wouldn't come while the mix of music, snickers, and instruction echoed to the upper level. He had nearly forgotten about what was going on downstairs. He wished he could continue his ignorance as he moved to his room. But he stopped himself and looked down at the file in hand. It was suspicious enough that he had locked himself in the nursery, but if he didn't come down to at least make an appearance it wouldn't go unnoticed. Tapping the file against his head, John gave a long sigh and moved down the stairs. He paused between the top and the first landing to watch what was going on.

Then he wished he hadn't.

Standing behind the couch, manning the stereo, was their neighbor Kacy. The pretty blond in a linin halter top and worn jeans was swaying her hips, as if demonstrating what should be happening. "No, baby, he leads, not you … don't look at me like that, I don't make the rules." She chuckled. As the slow romantic music flowed with an air of melancholy, John watched a short boy with a black button down and skater jeans sway awkwardly, his hands on slim hips. Accompanying the Hispanic boy was a slender girl, straight backed, and elegant looking. The beauty's long chocolate hair was curled into twisty ringlets as part of a new look she was trying out. She wore a small black shirt that bared her sleek midriff and a blue jean skirt.

John's face fell and eyes lightened as he watched Cameron's golden eyes lock with Morris's muddy brown as they box stepped across the living room rug. He'd never been more in love in that moment with someone that felt a thousand miles away when she was only a dozen paces from him. It was something in the music, the flourish of her hair in the lamplight as she sleekly moved across the carpet. He watched her eyes focused with a pleasant expression. John's fell on her slender arms wrapped around the back of Morris's neck and the quiet ghosted smirk of enjoyment that came whenever she danced.

It was part of Kacy's prom boot camp. Since she had heard of John and Riley's breakup, she had unloaded her vicarious aspirations for the perfect night all on Morris and Cameron. She was a woman that was bent on making Morris and Cameron a thing. Being of the same generation as Kacy, just eight years removed, John had seen those movies as well. The Disney Saturday night specials were the geeky, goofy, weirdo gets the beautiful girl and they have a prince and princess waltz at mid-court with all envious eyes on them. He'd tell the woman to shove off, that Cameron was spoken for. But he held his tongue, knowing even a slip up could shake this family to its foundation. So John and Cameron's secret relationship would have to take a back seat to outside medaling for the sake of the façade of normalcy in a home that was far from it.

Cameron was the first to break eye contact and find him watching. He could only imagine what his face must have looked like to see her and Morris making eyes, because Cameron almost physically winced under his almost inhuman gaze of wrath. From there it was all a snowballing avalanche. The smaller kid looked up from his nervous but love struck gaze to find John watching them. In the way he unhanded Cameron one might have thought he had his hand on a greasy sizzling grill. An end table scrapped loudly on the wooden floor when Morris backed up on it. Finally Kacy looked up and as aloof as ever only smirked.

"Ease up, kiddo, I'm chaperoning here." She chuckled. "No one's honor is in jeopardy." She assured him.

John's glared. "Those two statements conflict with each other." He snarked and took a deep breath before Morris hit his knees and begged for mercy.

The woman only smirked bitterly at the whip in his wit watching John descend the stairs. "Oh hardy har, emo kid." She swatted his arm as he passed.

They watched the young man lay the Horne case file on a corner table next to a pile of intel closed by rubber bands. With a positive step forward, Cameron addressed him. "Kacy has been teaching us how to dance." She supplied. The atmosphere was one of John catching her in another's bed.

But the young man didn't turn to face her. "Is that what she's calling it?" He jabbed rhetorically as he dug out another rubber band from a drawer. The playful lilts in his hard voice made Morris stop sweating and his heart stabilize in his narrow chest.

"It's a working progress." He chuckled. "All I know how to do is mosh and I don't think Cameron would last long in "the pit" if you know what I'm saying." He hoped to share a moment with the girl, but the cyborg was focused intently on John's back as he squared away briefs.

"You'd be surprised." He grinned to himself. An image in his mind conjured dozens of metal heads lying in the mud groaning while Cameron stands alone watching the thrash band like they were curious stick insects.

The blond crossed her arms looking at John suspiciously. "Hey if you and Riley just would've stayed the course, I'd be teaching you how to bust a move too." She looked perpetually annoyed with the boy who had gone fifty shades of dark since the time he stole cable for her.

"I wouldn't need it." He shot back. The snap of the rubber band on folder put a poignant period on his point. He tried not to look at Cameron as he moved to the kitchen to get something fruity to drink.

"Oh, yeah, than why don't you show us, Ricky Martin?"

John stopped and did what he told himself he wouldn't. His hard emerald eyes flew straight to Cameron standing and watching him from behind. He never thought how much he wanted it, wanted her, till that moment. The same bullshit Disney channel movies on some static TV in a crappy motel room came flashing to him. He was the same lonely boy perpetually waiting for his mom to come home. Mid-court, the shiny princess dress, all the jealous jocks watching. It was the closest and first best understanding of love that John Connor ever had. If there ever was a wish he could ask for, it was to have that moment for himself with the girl loved. There would be no wedding, no formals for the two of them. It could be years and years of watching from the shadows, stealing minutes and seconds behind people's backs. All he wanted was just one perfect moment on one perfect night to hold her in his arms and dance to some recycled 80's track. Just to know what it was like, to know those feelings he got at the end of those movies were real and that they were for him as much as everyone else his age.

He bowed his head under golden curious eyes and turned to Kacy who had her hands on hips expectantly. "I don't dance." He said seriously with a broodingly hard tone. Turning away from Morris and Cameron, John began walking away.

"How come?!" She called after him, annoyed at the mysterious tough guy act.

He shrugged as he dropped the case file on the dining room table. "Tried it once, didn't like it." He said with a stiff causal tone disappearing into the kitchen.

When the swing door closed he let out a large sigh and stumbled to the island. Bracing himself against it, he panted. His face stung as adrenaline rushed through his veins like lines of marching soldier ants with needle legs. It was becoming harder day after day to control himself. Emotions ran deep within John Connor, and lately all of them were bordered by a blackness that was always leading back to anger. He had tried hard to not let it control him, but his resentment of everything and everyone in his life was only getting worse now that he had started this relationship with Cameron. The more he spent time away from her, the more he was forced to keep his distance, the more the rage built inside him. It was getting harder and harder to hide.

This shadow of greed shaded his souls some nights. It made him feel crazy, guilty, and self-conscious to feel the things he felt. John Connor had never been in love before, nor had he ever had a girlfriend. He was making all of this up as he went. But he was scared when he was like this. To feel this way, so angry just to see someone touch her. He knew this wasn't love or he hoped this wasn't. On his worst nights he counted the wrongs and double standards placed on him and spat venom on all the people he loved for it. The truth was that in that moment when he came down the stairs he didn't just want to kill his friend and Kacy, he hated them for being here, and he hated them for depriving him of Cameron. He knew it wasn't right to feel this way. It felt like he had some sort of infection on a wound that he thought was healing but was starting to turn under the stitches.

Thoughts turned toward his mother and that night in July several years ago. She wasn't going to just kill Miles Dyson, she was going to blow him away. A study in hyperbole notwithstanding, that night Sarah Connor wasn't out to just kill the creator of Skynet, she was going to eviscerate him and his family. He'd seen the hate in her, the darkness that she embraced like a lover. She let it have control over her till the moment she couldn't pull the trigger. Since then, he had watched her fight it, reclaim parts of herself inch by inch. But he could still see it most nights. The anger, the deep soul killing hatred in the way she looked at everyone behind her emerald rapier eyes. Yet, it could never dominate her, because Sarah never knew what it was like to take a life. She had come so close and yet it never happened. Sarah hadn't killed while under the influence.

But John had.

He had touched that same darkness and let it inside him. But unlike his mom, who was still pure of heart, even with all the things done to her that she lived with and never told a soul. John Connor murdered the beast he was after. Not only did he murder it, he stuck it down with a savage hatred and spat on its bloody corpse when he killed it. He was slowly learning that there was no going back after that. His enemy wasn't human, an albino ape, and yet he had ended another life. He killed Sarkissian to protect the woman he loved, and the ape to protect his soul mate. How easier will the next one be? How long before he justifies another one? He looked at these feelings as if it was another entity, some other facet of emotion that wasn't him. But the most frightening concept to him in his most private moments of self-reflection was to think, to know, that this was who he was all along. In the darkest moments, in the most private places of his mind, John Connor was afraid of what he had become in the justification of protecting the women he loved and in turn what he was capable of when faced with the protection of all humanity.

Suddenly the swing door opened and Morris came inside. He looked flustered and out of sorts as he grabbed his denim jacket off the counter under the phone. So sudden was his overwhelmed state that he was startled to find John standing in the mostly dark kitchen.

"John! Oh man, you could've killed me!' He chuckled hurriedly.

"What's going on?" John asked seriously.

Morris slipped on his jacket. "My, ugh, grandma is in the hospital." He explained.

A shower of self-loathing and guilt wetted John at the way he had acted earlier. "Hey, sorry, is she alright?" He walked over to the boy.

Morris gave a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, I mean, I guess … I don't know why they called me. I didn't know I was a contact … but anyway she twisted her hip or something during bingo." He explained as they both exited the kitchen. "It's wrestling night, I didn't even know she played bingo … I mean if she was going to lie you'd think it would be about watching wrestling instead of playing Bingo at the Lincoln Heights Rec?" he complained.

A knowing look came over John's face as he escorted the punk rock fan to where Kacy was gathering her things. She slipped on black leather waist jacket and turned to John. "Hey, Morris's grandma got into a bingo accident." She explained while pushing up her sleeves.

There was a private look of amusement that he hid well. "So I've heard." He placed a consolatory hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to drive him to the hospital over there … since Cameron picked him up." She explained.

John walked with them to the front door and opened it for them. Morris paused as Kacy strode down the tile steps to the gravel drive way. "Hey can you tell Cameron when she gets out of the bathroom that I'm sorry to run out on her?" There was a painful sincerity to his comments that John didn't have the heart to mock. So he only placed his hand on his shoulder again and gave a nod of approval.

"Later, dude." The two boys clasped hands with a pop, and bumped opposite shoulders.

When the boy got down the first landing, John closed the door slowly. He let silence fill the home again as Kacy pulled away. When they were gone he stood in the doorway and couldn't hide the shit eating grin on his face as he stared at the door for a moment longer.

"Bingo accident?" He asked to the figure standing at the middle of the stairs.

When he turned Cameron seemed expressionless. She looked down at her boots before she looked to John. "It seemed harmless, but effective." She looked back toward him genuinely. He placed his hands in his pockets as he walked toward the stairs as the cyborg descended to meet him. When they reached each other he stood at the bottom, while she was on the second step from the last.

"Bingo accident?" He repeated with a bigger smile of amusement, trying the excuse like a new shirt in a dressing room.

Cameron frowned. "I did not want to cause him undo stress. The "nurse" simply explained to him that his grandmother won a gift certificate to a steak house, was over jubilant, and pulled something." She explained. John chuckled despite himself as he rubbed the back of his neck tiredly.

"It got him out of the house, did it not?" She pointed out.

He nodded. "Let's just hope they don't think about it too much." He looked up at her.

There was a long silence as they exchanged quiet looks. Then slowly John took a step forward and swallowed up his cyborg protector in his arms. He buried his face in her chest as he lifted her off the stairs giving her the customary spin before setting her down. Wrapping her arms around his neck they traded a passionate kiss like old lovers who had spent so many wasted lifetimes away from one another.

When they broke apart it was with a smack of moist cherry lip balm. He looked into her golden eyes and let her wash over him before burying his nose into her cheek and nuzzled it. Gently Cameron ran her hand through the back of his hair leaning into him.

"When I saw you on the stairs, I knew that they had over stayed their welcome." She said in a docile voice in his ear as John kissed the mole over her eyebrow.

Rigidness fell over him suddenly and slowly he left a peck on her eyebrow. Cameron felt it just by the contact of his skin on hers as he broke apart from her. There was a sudden guilt that flashed on the young man's handsome but brooding features as he faced his love.

"Did I say something wrong?" She asked. John didn't meet her gaze as he rubbed the cool skin on her exposed waist.

"No …" He shook his head and walked away.

Cameron seemed bothered by the action. "Was it the wrong thing to do?" She asked. It killed John how innocent she seemed and how willing she was to fault herself for his issues. All of it was making him feel worse as he gripped the love seat and stared at the book shelf.

"It's not you …" He sighed and leaned into the couch. He turned to check on her and she watched him expectantly. "Look …" he shook his head. "When I came down the stairs …" he started.

"You were upset." She finished for him. "Because I was with Morris." She confirmed.

He wanted to deny it, fill himself up with this noble idea that he wasn't some jealous jackass that was right on par with every guy his age. But he couldn't. "Yeah …" He nodded.

"I understand, that's why I sent him and Kacy away." She nodded.

It made John feel worse. "I know … but you shouldn't have. Not on my account." She looked suddenly very confused. He sighed again. "I saw your face, I know you enjoy dancing … you were enjoying yourself." He explained.

"Yes, it is always pleasurable."

John nodded. "Exactly, so you shouldn't have to stop it just because I didn't feel comfortable with you and Morris … dancing together. If you were enjoying yourself you shouldn't have to take me into account." He felt suddenly so guilty for everything. He was guilty for this darkness, guilty for Morris's unneeded stress, and guilty for wasting Kacy's gas money.

"But that's my job." Cameron was confused. "I was built solely to take you into account, always." She continued.

"But if you're enjoying yourself …"

"It is irrelevant what I feel or experience if it hurts you, John. I trust you feel the same for me."

"Of course!"

Cameron tilted her head. "Then I don't understand why we're having this conversation." She tightened her cheek.

A glare was leveled at her as John crossed his arms. "That's … not the … point." He gave a long sigh of frustration. Even in his own damn life John didn't have the privilege of beating the hell out of himself without someone doing it for him over something completely different. What was the point of quibbling over never having a wedding for themselves when he felt like they'd been married for thirty years already.

There was a very Sarah Connor look to her son as he glanced over at Cameron with a private look of grudging affection under a scowl. Eventually he pushed off the back of the couch and walked to the stereo system. Interested in what he was doing Cameron walked over to watch.

"What are you doing?" She asked as he shuffled through the disks, reading the back of the cases that belonged to the previous owner of the home. When he saw a track on one of the CDs he suddenly smiled with a sad nostalgic lilt. He removed the disk from its case and opened the turntable.

"Making it up to you." He replied as he placed the disk and pushed the tray back inside.

"Making what up to me?" She watched him fiddle with the stereo for a moment longer.

John turned toward her. "You were enjoying dancing, so why let the good times stop when you still have a partner?" He took her hand.

"I thought you didn't dance?" She asked in confusion.

Suddenly a bombastic opening of a big band number from the 40's came over the speakers. "I make special exceptions." He smirked gently. With a lift of her arm and a twirl, he spun her into his embrace.

The two began to sway together to the clarinets that evened out and slowed the old song. It was as if the two had done it a hundred times over a thousand timelines as they moved across the floor. Anticipation of the steps was all muscle memory ingrained in the DNA and circuitry of the two lovers. Their chemistry guided by some unseen energy that seemed to have always existed that had drawn them to one another, before they even knew each other's names or very existence.

"_Why do robins sing in December,  
Long before the springtime is due?  
And even though it's snowing,  
Violets are growing,  
I know why and so do you."_

Cameron watched with a surprised fascination when John began to serenade her, keeping up perfectly with the female standard singer on the CD. His hard green eyes lightened as they cut a path to the center of the living room. In Cameron's arms the darkness that had so consumed John Connor's fears and future seemed to disappear as if she alone was some ironic ethereal creature that pulled him into god's light from the shadows he had lingered in for so long. Even in the light that shined on the suddenly so tired figure with the youthful face there was a reprieve of happiness the closer he held her.

"_Why do breezes sigh ev'ry evening,  
Whispering your name as they do?  
And why have I the feeling  
Stars are on my ceiling?  
I know why and so do you."_

John's voice was gravely and yet it was so balanced that it made Cameron along with all those that had ever heard him wonder if destiny had chosen the wrong path for the young man. She kept step with him as they remained stationary for the rest of the song, captured in one another's eyes, seeking shelter from the outside in the world that they created for one another where there was no one but John and Cameron. No tomorrow, no yesterday, just as the two of them in this moment, in these arms.

"How do you know this song?" Cameron asked.

There was a strange nostalgia that seemed attached to whatever memory played through John's brain. He bit his lip and shrugged. "When I was little, I lived several months in this ramshackle room at "The Victory Motel" this sort of 40's hold over. Mom was with these survivalist nut jobs, and she wanted me close, and it was the only place close enough but "Not too close" in mom logic. Anyway, so I lived next door to this guy, and every day around five or six just as I was doing my English homework, he'd play this song on his record player." John shook his head at the memory. "And I'd get so sick of it … and finally I went over to tell him to turn his bullshit off. So I knock on the door and this old man, World War II vet, opens the door and I feel like a jackass." Cameron gave him a smirk when she saw the humbled smile on the youth's face as he spoke. "So he invites me in, apologizes, and explains to me over a Coke why he plays it every day at the same time at a particular volume." He nodded.

"Why?" Cameron seemed more fascinated than any one person might at the mundane story.

There was a glassy look in John's eyes as he focused on Cameron absently. "Well …" He cleared his throat. "During the war, he had hit it off with this British nurse in New Guinea. He had told her all about Los Angeles, and that there was this great motel on the outskirts of these beautiful hills. After a night of dancing and drinking she asked him for the address, what time he'd get there, and which room he'd be staying at when all of it was over? He told her, but just before the first kiss the Japanese surprise air raided the base and they got separated. He never saw her again after that. So after V-J Day he drove over to this motel and used his pension to buy out the room. So every day since, at the time he promised to be there, he played this song, hoping that if she ever comes around she hears the first song they danced to and know where he is." He cleared his throat and shook his head with just a sorrowful lilt in his smirk.

Cameron watched John for a long a moment. "What happened after that?" She asked.

"I sat outside with him every day. When you're a kid there's more room for fairytale … maybe today would be the day, you know?" He nodded in some private sorrow that still stung freshly.

The cyborg tilted her head. "Did she ever show up?" She asked.

There was a hard cynical feeling that overcame him. But the longer he held his protector, feeling her so close to him. He began counting all the impossibilities and inconsistencies that had to have happened in time and space to make this very moment a reality. Then, he only smiled again. "Here's hoping, Angel." John reached up and touched her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the bone with a new sense of reverence.

There was a pensive look on the girls face as they quietly absorbed the music as John was cast a million miles away and yet every thought brought her closer. Finally the girl looked up again and captured his attention.

"When you're eighty-three, like that man in your story … will you still dance with me?" She asked without hesitation. There was a pure angelic innocence to her voice, never she flinching in the weight of the question she asked.

You could almost audibly hear the sound of John Connor's heart break as he looked so consumed by a love so deep that he felt the cyborg girl was hardly real. A smile directed by intense eyes of a deep attachment wrapped around her. He stammered a moment, emotion heavy on his vocal cords. He cleared his throat and ran a hand through her hair.

"At eighty-three I'd probably want too …" He winced. "But the likelihood of being able too is highly doubtful." He shrugged.

Intrigued by the issue, she thought for a moment before returning to him. "I could carry you." She offered.

John smiled and nodded slowly not looking anywhere else. "Then nothing would've changed." He chuckled. Instead of answering the cyborg laid her head against his broadening chest. Watching her, John leaned down and kissed his protector's forehead, before he closed his eyes and laid his head on top of hers. Together they swayed to the old song in the middle of their living room. It never dawned on John Connor; it was simply just intuition, that he was never homeless …

He just moved.

* * *

**Acknowledgements**

"_I know why (And So Do You)" – Glenn Miller &amp; His Orchestra_


	4. Science of Deduction: Songs of Solomon

**The Science of Deduction**

"_Songs of Solomon"_

They're not bad houses on this block. LA might not be like every town, but it has its moments. A hard working, steady upper management job and you might end up here. They're two and three bedroom homes. Career couples that met on a company retreat, married in Bermuda, raise up a small family that's manageable for working parents. Settle down to a collection of classy post card picket fences that you'd be happy to pay a mortgage on. The place reeked of housewives, PTA, and neighborhood associations. Pot lucks, borrowing a neighbor's lawn mower. Over all, it's not a bad life to live. Not every person in this city wants to be famous, not every person a never-was.

The trouble you find in this part of town is underneath the surface. Hidden secrets covered by drawn curtains and brick walls that snuff the noise of domestic violence, volatile marriages, infidelity, child abuse, and bankruptcy. All played as idle gossip discussed by those you trust and content never to do anything. They're the family down the street, the ones who throw the Christmas party every year, afraid of the bitten apple that might force them from their own Gardens of Eden. There were secrets behind these picket fences. On the streets and back alleys, all the places these people fear, it's not hard to see what's being hidden. The quested truth was luminous for those who sought it. When you have nothing, there is no loyalty, and nothing to lose. But trying to unearth something in a place like this would take more than a cigarette and a threat. They don't smoke, and they have rights … and how they like to remind you of them. The cops in this division like to count them, just to make themselves crazy some nights. When called to this area they can get nothing done, because of all the rights these people have.

Take Rodney Alexander, fifty-six, two girls, and a wife. He's middle management at the electric company, working nine to five every day for twenty four years, pension in three. His wife and eldest daughter run a day-care from their home. Every mayoral and City Council candidate would look at this man and tell his voters that he was who Los Angeles could be. He's the model citizen that every politician strives for their community to someday look like. It's not their fault that they don't know what's in this man's heart. The model citizen that comes home, perpetually pissed off at the world. He's slamming doors, gritting smiles for the straggler parents, making underhanded comments that are borderline rude. When they're gone he sneers and cusses at his wife, screams at his daughters.

He's bored with his life, frustrated about the way it went. The only way he feels better about himself is sitting out in his garage every night, blasting his rock music with a beer in hand, and chomping on a lit cigar. It's the pounding of the music, the flagrant defiance in aggression from the alcohol. All of it makes him feel alive. Rodney waits for someone to come and get him. He lives for a well-meaning neighbor to come and ask nicely for him to turn down his racket. He'll blow smoke at them, cuss, and use his bulk to intimidate till their gone. He just wants to know he still has it, that the bar hoping hell-raiser was still in there. One 'fuck you' to the cops that come for sound ordinance and he can delude himself that he's still every bit the young man who took a part time job to pay for a baby he didn't really want.

"Do you fucking see me … does it look like I want to be fucking bothered?! Huh?!"

A slim young blond stood in the corner, a tear in her eye. She wears a UCLA cheer t-shirt, short shorts, and a perfect tan. She should be a picture of a strong female role model, and to many she was. But here and now, in this home, in this moment her eyes are big and glassy. The young girl is hunched and her demeanor was demure and frightened. The raising of this violent man's voice melted fifteen years off her, and she cowered in its echo through the garage as if she was a little girl again.

"You make me pay for all your shit, you make me pay for your so called fucking education, and what do you do with it? You dress like a slut and shake pomp-pomps for TV cameras! Is that what my money pays for?! Huh?! Now what do you want?! Isn't that enough?!"

The overweight man roared at his youngest girl. He'd regret saying this in the morning, but right now it felt so good to tell her what he really felt. The single tear that fell down her cheek only made him angrier. She was eating him alive, and all she can do is cry when confronted? Who did she take him for?

Suddenly his pounding music was cut off as something swished by. He felt the ice cold of his beer spew over his fist as his radio buzzed and crackled behind it. He looked down and saw that something had knifed through his hard aluminum can like butter and imbedded into his radio speaker. A four pointed metal object in the shape of the North Star was dug deeply within his stereo. In the metal weapon's center was a glowing jewel that blue electrical charges arced out from. Alexander and his daughter watched as the webs of electricity bounced down the cord and into the plug. Overhead the garage light buzzed on and off before the fluorescents suddenly exploded. The man stood out of his seat while the girl yelped as the brittle pops resulted in the world growing dark.

"What the fuck …?" The man whipped beer off his big hand as he leaned over to see the sleek star embedded in his sound equipment.

"You're good at bullying little girls, but let's see how you do in a fair fight."

Eyes swept angrily toward a figure standing in the Alexander drive-way. The stranger was tall and athletic, and wore a vintage double breasted coat of beaten leather, his hands in the pockets. In the cold breeze of the Pacific night, locks of grown out curls and a dark scarf fluttered to one side. Though his eyes weren't visible, Rodney could feel them look right through him.

"Wha … what the fuck do you want?!" Sudden fear was compensated with bravado.

The man gave a tilt of his head that seemed almost inherited. "You heard me, you fat slob." The man baited darkly. His voice was just raspy enough to make the big man think twice about his entitled suburban tone.

This was all Rodney Alexander dreamed of for five years. Someone had finally come for him. He'd get his chance to prove to himself that at any time he could turn on that buddy-buddy college kid heading to Santa Clara on Saturday night. But he was the victim of the old caution to those that wish for something.

What came over Alexander was very primal to all animals that live on this planet. This middle age man wanted to fight, but he wanted a fight with someone on his level. He wanted a fight where he knocked a guy down, threatened him, and felt smug with his opponent limping back home to the scorn of pride. The shadow standing on his driveway knew nothing of this type of fight. He felt the prickle on the back of his neck, the anxiety in his chest, and the feeling of inhuman eyes on him. This stranger was looking for a real fight. He wasn't settling for a squabble with neighbors, police getting called, wives separating opponents. This man was a predator from a different time, which fought and believed in values and rules that stood apart from the contemporary. When this man fought, he'd settle for nothing less than total annihilation …

He'd settle for blood.

The large man had enough sense to puff up his chest. He'd show his size in a last ditch effort to scare off the shadow. But eyes hard and sharp continued to glimmer in the dim star light. _They felt like a knife to his throat _as they waited. There was enough lard, piss, vinegar, and a whole host of unhappy yesterdays in the tank for the combustion needed to fool Rodney into thinking he wasn't a complete coward.

So he'd take the first swing.

"_Male, fifties, five'eleven, at least three-hundred pounds. Cigar and beer, blue collar, prides himself on being a real man, typical bar brawler. His bravado, taste in music, and temper means haymaker. Sub for height, weight, and beer hand. The blow is coming at three quarters to the right. He's aiming for the jaw. Chop block to deflect. Heavy drinker, black circles, yellow tinted eyes, and swelling on his side. Counter with body shot to bulge, got to be swollen liver. Cigar, stained teeth, flab, desk jock. Use lighting combination to break lower ribs, hard enough to puncture clogged lung, keep him from lifting that arm. Trap desperate Jab, flip … __**break**__."_

Rodney Alexander reared back at the man as he charged in a trot to build momentum. He let fly a powerful haymaker that was fueled by all the fear and primal anger of the situation he was in. Almost immediately his opponent, keeping a solid center, tilted his body away and countered with a chopping hand at the oncoming arm. The counter made contact with the heavy man's wrist at the apex of the coming strike over the silhouette's shoulder, shifting control.

Redirecting Alexander's momentum, his opponent drifted him right into a compressed punch that ripped into the man's side with all the speed of a striking serpent. The boisterous drunk, who had so many things to say to everyone in this neighborhood, now choked on his pain as it surged like a tsunami through his shocked body.

Chest now open, the experienced fighter's hands were a blur of slamming lightening punches that beat into the larger man's rib area. The sound of fist to flesh was like the hard thunks of bare knuckles against wet meat, and just as painful. Alexander gave violent coughs at the assault on his abused respiratory system. With a traumatized liver and punctured lung, he was left with no alternative for fighting back but to use his rarely needed left to jab, desperately trying to create space.

But his hard jab missed when his opponent side stepped the blow. A disturbingly painful noise of buckling bones echoed into the night when the man suddenly trapped Alexander's arm within both of his. As if in steps of a choreographed dance that only one of the fighters rehearsed for, the vigilante slipped a leg between both of the larger man's. Applying pressure, he reversed on the larger with all their combined weight. With a hoarse gasp of surprise, Rodney was swung over the shadow fighter's shoulder and slung down on the cement. He coughed and wheezed as his shoulder crushed into the hard surface, his left arm still trapped above him in his opponent's hold.

CRUNCH!

Rodney hooted and gasped, kicking his heels into the pavement. With one violent action his hand had been twisted the wrong way and his arm was collapsed on. The stranger released the broken limbs that fell limply over the defeated Alexander's broad chest. There was a second spine tingling munch, when the shadow dropped a knee down hard on the large boisterous family man's arm, cradled against his chest. Sobs of intense pain were quieted with a vicious and barbarous ferocity of the beating that came after. Teeth and sinew arced into the air as _the sharp eyed shadow rocketed one beating fist after another_.

The blood roared in the vigilante's ear. Rage filled his eyes as he pounded on the man. The dark of the cold night, the feeling of cracked cement under tread, and the hovering of aircraft over the skyline were all reminders of a world he came from. The violence of the self-imposed justice of a ruined time period that was only the flutter of a butterfly's wings away. Rodney Alexander could've died that night, and in any other world he would've. But the ambiance of car engines beyond, the far off searchlights of a movie premiere gliding over the open crimson night sky, and the glint of a knife reminded this vigilante that he wasn't home.

The shadow of a horrific tomorrow halted his barbaric beating and looked up from the twitching fat man as a predator would its prey in the African bush. The girl had an old army knife and pointed it defensively at the man. It was a half-hearted threat. She nearly fell when he stood to full height and took a step forward. Buckets and a lawn mower rattled as she stumbled backward. When he halted, their eyes met. And for all of the surgical savagery of the short lived fight, somehow, the young woman knew that he wasn't going to hurt her.

"Is … is he dead? Did you kill him?" She pieced out with a terrified stutter.

The vigilante was even toned. "No …" He replied honestly. "But It would've been more humane." He stepped over the broken fat man like he was a pile of dog shit. With a tug he pulled his throwing star from the fried sound equipment.

The girl paused, still holding her grandfather's knife at him from a distance. "Did you cripple him?" She asked in shock of his calm candor and the guilty feeling of hope in the answer she waited on.

As if her father could answer, he moaned. The man with the sharp eyes looked down. "Only if he slacks off in rehab …" He turned and matched a glance with the girl, before his eyes trailed up her body. It made her feel uncomfortable. It was like he could see all her secrets, could see the things she was hiding. Her bruises, the deflated self-worth, and the prescription drugs not in her name to deal with it all.

"Imagine what you could do with a year and half while he toddles and spits in _Pescadero_." He left her with that image as he turned his back on her.

Pushing back his coat sleeve, the man swiped a finger over a metallic bracelet on his wrist. Suddenly, their world was illuminated neon. A miniature holographic screen the size of a smart phone appeared above his wrist. She watched in amazement of this futuristic technology as he swiped and move things on the screen with just his finger. Crackling and snapping was underlain with disembodied voices on radio frequencies that were classified to the public. She watched the neon holographic sound waves coursing up and down on screen as dispatchers directed police cars all around the metropolis. The shadow's voice was modulated when he spoke into the sleek bracelet.

"KGPL, this is 5-ADAM-11, requesting back-up at 9319 Europa, 217 in progress, over."

The vigilante paused and turned back toward the girl. Her eyes were wide as the night was filled with static from a police radio. She looked back and forth between the man and her father. She was conflicted for only a moment. Memories, hurtful names, and the way she felt when she saw what had been done to her father. All of them washed over her. Every night afraid of being yelled at, all the work done just to show how much she loved him, and how many times he sent her to "_Bother your fucking mother."_ Her heart was weighed down like an anchor when flashes of the ridicule, the hair pulling, and dragging her out of the dorms by her shirt to finish his drunken screaming when she walked away from him.

These were all the reasons that the young cheerleader lowered her grandfather's knife.

"_5-ADAM-11, KGPL, assistance in route, over." _

There was a long minute of silence before either one of them spoke. "I've never seen anything like that before." The girl offered gently, pushing blond locks behind her ear demurely. She stood in the cold with starry blue eyes whose shine didn't wear as the world turned dark as the holo-screen blinked out. The vigilante felt a pang of loathing. The cheerleader's father would be eating out of a straw for the next year and a half in Pescadero for mental trauma from the beating. And all this young woman could do was look at this handsome stranger like she might be in love.

There was a time he had lived for that look from people, especially pretty girls. There was a time it made him feel something. There was reassurance in those grateful glances, a flicker of relevance like he was doing the right thing. It was a sense of purpose that went beyond the obsession that pushed him into this life of violence. But tonight it made him feel bitter and jaded. This wasn't justice; it wasn't what heroes did. They didn't beat on people to make the means justify the ends. But then he wasn't a hero anymore was he? Heroes were the ones who died, cowards where the ones that survived, and the villains … the villains where the ones that couldn't let go.

He brushed past the blond and into the dark. The girl followed him a few paces, before the sound of a siren echoed down the silent neighborhood. She stopped and listened for a beat. When she returned the stranger was gone.

* * *

By the time Ryan Connor had cut across the block, scaling fences, the police cruiser that stood guard in front of James Ellison's home had switched on their bubble gum lights. Perched on the fence, like a silent gargoyle on the thirteenth floor, his handsome face was shadowed by the flashes of red and blue. He watched the black and white pull out to respond to the 217 in progress a block away. When they were gone he slipped into the yard in a crouch.

"What the hell?"

From the minute he landed on the turf, he saw that the entire lawn had been all but torn up. There were over fifty holes and punctures all over the backyard. Sharp eyes immediately became suspicious. The piercings and probing were in efficient patterns that if gridded properly covered the entire volume of the yard. Only a machine could be so precise. Sticking a hand down into the dirt, he took ahold of the loose grassy clumps, rubbing the soil in hand. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully letting sod and turf fall in granulated powder between his fingers. This had been done months ago, at the beginning of Ellison's infection. From the minimum of damage or excavation it looked like Ellison was other about to put in a pool or 'the world's worst lawn service' didn't find what they were looking for.

Keeping low to gravity, the man glided soundlessly under the sightlines of the upper floors of the neighbors' homes, using the back fence to screen his movement. Years of fighting in the darkest of the most dangerous places and warzones in a ruined world of tomorrow had made seeing and moving in the dark all muscle memory and old training for the vigilante. Ryan Connor would sooner forget his own name before he'd lose a Ranger's instincts and other skills taught to him by a taskmaster father in the finesse art of sneaking in and out of heavily populated and guarded areas.

The FBI agent's white railed back porch was decorated with a grill, lawn chairs, and a yellowed book of Sudoku word puzzles. The book was meant to put the period on a lazy summery of a busy professional. It might have worked too if it wasn't for the fact that the grill looked recently used. The charcoal stains were relatively fresh and the grease was yet to calcify. There had been four chickens and two links of sausage on the grill as late as a week ago. It seemed that someone was having a cookout for two. If he needed more evidence of that, all he had to do was look at the twin lawn chairs around the tables. While the one facing the inside of the house looked dingy and weather worn, the second one looked newly bought in anticipation of new company. The chair had its back pushed against the wall, giving the user a strategic look of the yard around them. It was a strange and paranoid quirk for a guest of a downhome backyard cook-out.

There was no sound as the shadowed figure walked across the white planks toward the small table. He picked up the yellowed and worn Sudoku book in the center, eyeing the new chair. He leafed through the book in the dark, eyes forming a glare the more he read. Each crinkled and stiff page, deteriorated by exposer, had been filled out completely. Every puzzle had been solved with neat flawless handwriting with a purple gel pen. That was the biggest oddity of everything. While James Ellison was certainly not a man who used purple gel pens, more to the point, no normal person used a pen to play the game. The mistakes that will eventually happen while trying to solve puzzles will need an eraser. Only someone completely sure of their answers would be able to play with a pen. As for the condition of the book, it could be explained by the small black printing on the back that said that it had been produced in the year 2007, nearly two years ago. The cheap paper, made for throw away impulse supermarket aisle buys, would surely start to degrade by now. Only helped along by someone who had already began prepping its condition before the murder.

Someone was trying really hard to sell the picture of a lonely, time crunched, professional, too stressed to notice he was killing himself. And with the absences of crime scene tape, it looked like they were succeeding in pulling the wool over the LAPD's eyes. It also didn't help that the eight percent police pay raise in Proposition 14 was voted down last week in favor of more environmental restriction. All of it culminating in the bitter, disinterested, shoddy, and non-existent police work here. Whoever the killer was, had as much inside ball on future events as he did and timed all of this perfectly to coincide with the LAPD's "Schrodinger's strike" they would be on for the next several months. In his mind's eye, Ryan felt the chess board already setting up between the killer and himself. Both their moves and counters based on their preconceived notions of a board only partially lit in a dark room.

It wasn't the first time, though it would be the last that lock picking tools flipped the bolts on James Ellison's back door. But what happened next was a phenomenon that could never be explained. It didn't happen often in the world, call it an anomaly, the damage from the flames of a great war through time and space. But as the shadow opened the door and walked through the thresh hold, there was a sparked flicker through quantum atoms in the ripples of time.

For a moment, just a breath's second, when Ryan Connor shut the door behind himself it turned afternoon. While on the other side of this tear in space time, a woman closed the same door and found it night time. Both rugged man and regal woman turned and came face to face. A sliver of moonlight gashed the man's scarred eye through the blinds, while a sliver of sunlight gashed the woman's from those same blinds. Even with the skin tones, stubble, and gender separating them aesthetically, it was still like looking in a strange funhouse mirror. Both man and woman had the same sharp emerald eyes, same grown out locks of black curls, same bone structure, and way of carrying one's self. Neither ghostly apparition flinched in one another's presence, even when inches apart, because in a blink the tear closed.

It was rare in the timeline of the universe that the exact same action would happen twice as it had before two years prior. But it could only get worse as the time fields between past, present, and future scab over from the damage caused by the terrible destructive weapon created in the final days of the last great war of the future. Its maker was a vengeful mechanical god, enraged by the murder of a little girl who had been his only friend. The rips and tears created by this artificial minds rage and fear of a second death would take six generations before they'd patch themselves. For now, as was the case for most, Ryan and Sarah Connor, separated by two years, would only ponder it for a second before forgetting anything ever happened.

The detective made sure that all of the blinds were closed and curtains were shut. Then with a click, a beam of light lit the pitch black of the homely house buried in obscure suburbia. Emerald eyes followed the beaten chrome plated flashlight's spotlight over table and desk tops.

He started in the living room to find it dusty and lived in. James Ellison was a man who spent much of his time here and less in his bedroom. If Ryan didn't know that Ellison was a divorced man, than he would've by now. Magazines and newspaper were stacked next to DVD remote, Christian Science Monitor, The Examiner, and Atlanta Magazine. Was he home sick? Or was it a longing to see something familiar? A bought and paid for six dollar round trip down memory lane to a time before James Ellison knew about the machines?

Ryan wondered what it must have been like to never know about Judgment Day, to believe that all of this, the world, would stay the same forever. It must have been nice … till it wasn't. Till you realize when you're family is dead and a grinning metal skeleton rips out your friend's spine that it all was a lie. There weren't many times, but there were moments that Ryan Connor was glad to be who he was and know what he did.

A foreign object glimmered in the flashlight beam. It was on the left side of Ellison's brown tweed couch. It was a glass of stale water sitting on an end table. He examined it for a long moment and turned his attention to the other objects on the coffee table. The magazines, newspapers, coasters, and entertainment remotes were on the right, next to the recliner. Even his television was angled for a right side view. If Ellison was right handed and had a recliner, he wouldn't be sitting on the left side of his couch.

A grim smirk touched the vigilante's face.

Reaching into his pocket, the man clicked off his flashlight, and extracted a small laser. Pointing the bulbous neon pen light at the glass he clicked it on. A blue laser began trailing over the glass up and down like a grocery store scanner. Slowly, yellowed splotches appeared, and what was the promise of finger prints turned into washed out smudges. When the detective turned the flashlight back on he found a white ring around the bottom of the cup. One sip of the water glass and he could taste the salt and preservatives from the ice makers of the time period. The glass had been filled to the brim with water and ice. Slowly melting in room temperature, the liquid over spilled within hours, washing away any finger prints.

"Touché." Ryan muttered, feeling as if he had just had his intelligence severely insulted by hoping that the killer would be that stupid.

But, even let down, he'd still not give up so easily on the ability of finding something. Walking around from behind the couch, Ryan stuffed his hands in between the cushions. Two French fries and twelve cents hadn't bought him any clues. But the whiff of something familiar made him pause. It was the same sweet sent that had made everything in his brain to go fuzzy in the Central City Morgue. The intoxicating smell of femininity and silk made him heady and overcome with emotion. He knew that perfume. Not only because the scent had lingered on James Ellison's collar when they found his body, but because now that it was stronger, he could identify in a moment of clarity that it was the same perfume his mother used to wear.

Ryan crouched in front of the sofa and smelt the back rest cushions. A single tear fell involuntarily. It had been so long since he had last smelled the scent. It felt like a slap to his nostalgia, a sudden attack of sentimentality. It hurt more than anyone could fathom, to be reminded in a split second of all that was taken from a small boy, who buried those memories rather than let them fester inside him. Nothing hurt more than being reminded after all the years of heart ache, that once, long ago, Ryan Connor had been happy.

His chest heaved as he paced away from the couch before everything he thought he had suppressed drowned him in old wounds. Quietly he breathed hard and tried to push past blank golden eyes staring at the dark ceiling. He tried to forget the feeling of a satin night slip's smooth material under his palm. And the sight of pooling blood and wires on the living room rug. They were all the images he associated with his mother, and tried to reach back farther to the truth, to the relevancy of the case.

When he pushed his emotions back into the old dusty box, he remembered that It was a perfume that his momma … mother, didn't wear often, expensive, meant to last. A gift from someone from a Christmas long before he was born. A woman in a dark suede jacket, and matching scarf and black hair flashed to mind suddenly, but was lost eventually. Unless the killer was ultra-wealthy she would only wear something that expensive for special occasions, like his mother. A grilled meal, seductive perfume … the killer was here for one hell of a sendoff before Ellison took a cruise down The Styx. It was just too bad for Jimmy that all of the Boatmen's faire was in between the cushions.

Ryan gave one final whiff of the back rest, savoring the last hazy images of a teenage girl standing in front of the bathroom mirror. A curling iron was in her hand, the forever young beauty explaining to a very small boy, watching from his perch on the bathroom counter, why hair was the hardest thing to get right. After allowing just a moment longer in all the old memories, he left the living room and chose to forget that period of his life ever existed.

While the girl's physical form had left his mind, her voice hadn't. Though, it wasn't the ever frustrating paradox of hair styling that was on her lips. It was a matter of a much more relevant tangle to brush out, the science of deduction and fundamentals of solving a murder.

It had often been asked throughout the war why John Connor needed a partner and more to a point why he needed an arrogant, fearless, and reckless kid like Ryan. It was for the very reason that the now grown man had been ignoring for over two decades of trying and failing to fill the boots of the impossible. John Connor needed Ryan because the hero of humanity was the big plan guy, the inspiration, the global offensive coordinator. John needed Ryan because he needed a human prospective, he needed someone who saw and enjoyed the little things … John Connor needed a detective to replace his wife.

For so long Ryan had been asking the big "how" of a twenty eight year old serial killer case that caused the world to end, but not the "why" that was essential. Why was James Ellison the first victim? What did he have that she wanted? Where did she kill him? And who was it that wanted this item so bad? All questions summed up in one.

"Who gains?"

The first stop would be James Ellison's computer. He had seen a desk coming into the house. But when he reached the old, dusty cherry wood he found nothing but piles of open bibles and walls filled with old family pictures. Ryan picked the holy books up and read highlighted passages. "Solomon's Song", "Samson and Delilah", "Bathsheba". Each story involved the lust for a woman, the sins committed by men of power to possess her, and God's punishments and other sacrifices endured to keep her.

Conclusion: The man was having some serious women trouble.

"What did you give up, Jimmy Boy? What'd you give to keep her?" He muttered dropping the last bible back on the desk.

The only other place that James Ellison would keep his computer would be in the bedroom. The flashlight led the way into a smaller side hallway covered still by pictures. There was a semi-recent picture of little girls on bikes. Below it was a black and white of three old women in rocking chairs on a Sharecropper's porch. Two little boy's shirtless and in overalls carrying blocks of ice down a dusty Depression era country road. James Ellison was a collector of family history, proud of the places and roots that got him here. The advice he sought came from the bibles …but the crippling guilt came from all the faces of generations of Ellison's on his wall he felt he was letting down. From the backbreaking cotton fields of old Georgia, to heroism on the Cuban battlefields of the Spanish-American War, and finally to the parents who watched their son graduate from law school. In a strange way Ryan empathized with James Ellison, knowing of a legacy he could never live up to and constantly knew he had failed. They were two men going back to what they knew for comfort, Ellison his religion, Connor his gun and magnifying glass.

The bedroom was neat, tidy, and organized. There was something off about it. Judging by the living room and what the killer had wanted them to think of the busy professional. It was odd that out of all the places in the house, it was Ellison's bedroom that the man kept tidy. Sometimes in detection it was what wasn't there that was as effective as what was. The killer wanted to hide something that happened here. Perfume, barbeque, "Song of Solomon", he'd be truly perplexed … if he was five years old.

Before he could ponder what exactly was being hidden here, he found what he was looking for. In the corner of the master bedroom was a mini-desk with a flat screen, keyboard, and a tower underneath. The man sat in Ellison's office chair for a long moment. He flipped on the tower and heard the wire of the ancient computer that made Ryan Connor, a time traveler yet to be born, feel like he was in the Stone Age. Seeing the white text on the black backdrop, he simply shook his head. While he waited for the boot up he took a look at what was on the man's desk. It was paper work and inquiries into the security system, and clearances of guards at Serrano Point. It seems he had been looking at the potential meltdown that had happened nearly a year ago. Ryan marveled how herculean a task it would take to rally Ellison in catch up from how many steps he was behind the rest of the world he had been inducted into since North Hollywood.

When the black and white screen stayed, the man read what it actually said. His sharp eyes narrowed in the sudden clarity. The computer informed the detective that it couldn't be booted up because it was missing the drives. The man hit his knees and flashed his dented chrome light on the inner workings of the old computer. Someone had ripped the drives out. Reaching into his coat pocket of beaten leather, he pulled out a coin looking chip. Slapping it onto the tower, a blue light started to flash on the metal device. Pushing his sleeve back, he brought up his holographic screen.

"Run forensic reconstruction of database."

On the black and white screen source code began appearing horizontally and running in rows like a river of futuristic data. On the holo-screen the entire desk top of James Ellison's computer appeared. "Run diagnostic on last viewed data." He ordered.

Certain icons on the desk top began disappearing. Finally there were just two. "Zeira Corp. Employee List" and "Zeira Corp. Work Schedules." Though the man wouldn't be able to access the files without the drivers, he knew now what Ellison had given his killer. Not just his security access, but the means, and the intelligence to start making moves that would cost not only his mother and a little girl their lives, but the whole world's.

"You dumb fucking bastard." He growled in disgust.

Who was this woman, this monster, who had branded her name on his life, on his family's lives long before he had ever been born? This woman who seduced and killed her way into the fabric of fate and destiny? Who took from men and women all that was precious and demanded more and more till she broke them, like James Ellison, Like Savannah Weaver, like his mother? Did she want anything, or did she do it because she could? Pension for violence, religious fanatic, or just likes the idea of fire and ice. Ryan Connor could and had superimposed her face onto every enemy he had ever fought and it didn't make him feel any better. Because he wasn't any closer to finding her, to finding what she wanted. So he'd follow her sex and lies, the scent of expensive perfume and blood to its logical last destination right in front of him.

He shined light on the bed and tilted his head. There were wrinkles and ridges on the bedspread, the ends where crooked, and it looked like someone stuffed the sheets under the mattress. For all the masterful clean up and track covering of everywhere else, the killer seemed rushed to get out of the room, possibly get out of the house.

Strangely as he knelt next to the bed he began to smell a pungent odor in the air. The vigilante sniffed twice and crinkled his nose. It was a certain smell that he knew and hadn't forgotten in all his years in the tunnels. It was human urine. He turned the sheets over and found a yellowed spot on the left side of the bed sheets, just like the water on the end table. There was also the unmistakable scent of female ejaculation at different spots around the urine stain. He'd question just what exactly got James Ellison's lumber mill cutting when he noticed that the female ejaculate was older than the urine. The Killer had made violent love to Ellison, fell asleep, and pissed the bed. This woman killed people, killed children, and she was worried that someone would find out she still wet the bed?

The man shook his head and leaned down to pick up his flashlight that he left on the floor when something shiny glimmered in the light. Reaching underneath the bed, the man found something interesting. A female's double breasted trench coat was stuffed underneath amongst wiped away dust bunnies. Dumping it on the comforter, the man raised an eyebrow.

It wasn't just a woman's designer coat that was 32-24-32 in size. There was also a pair of pearly bikini panties made of satin that were wrapped inside of it. Ryan would be lying if he said he didn't feel a touch of shame for having to sniff the panty crotch. There was lingering must of a woman's arousal, but there were no pubic hairs. The only thing of note was that both coat and panties seemed almost doused in the perfume. They were possibly dumped so that the scent of the overpriced cat piss wouldn't linger on her skin or the items were too distinctive and noticeable if worn back to her haunt. It was becoming more and more likely to Ryan that this killer was moonlighting, hiding in plain sight amongst people that had no idea what she was doing. A classic infiltrator …

But non-the-less it was all dead ends again. The Woman's fluids couldn't produce DNA. While the coat, perfume, and silky panties seemed designer, like the clothing of a young woman possibly even a teenage girl who paid attention to contemporary youth fashion rags. All of it was clues to the killer's psychology, like the urine stain. But sadly the clothing seemed clean. All in all it was looking like a whole lot of nothing again …

That was, till he reached into the coat pocket.

It was an empty syringe. High quality not cheaply bought or produced by some two bit dope dealer on the Boulevard. Good plastic, industrial strength needle and the milligram counter on the side in clear black writing. While observing the item, finding what had to be the last dose of steroids given to Ellison that tipped him over into that long goodnight, he noticed a label on the bottom of the counter. Extracting his magnifying glass, Ryan Connor used the glimmer of moonlight through the blinds to read.

"That's interesting …"

_**Property of Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services **_


	5. Chapter Three: Will the Circle Be

**Chapter Three**

_Will the Circle Be Unbroken_

The sun was shining brightly over the busy city. Every denizen was like a worker ant, running from job to job, from one task to the next. Each one in their own little world built on dreams and practicality. None of them seemed to know what was coming. Maybe there were a few out there that might feel it in their guts - the occasional chill down the spine. Seeing a news story about tech companies or a secret moment of fear watching a TV show about cyborgs and knowing something wasn't right. But no one knew the sheer weight of the future. The streets littered with ash and skulls. On that front Derek Reese couldn't fault them, couldn't hold it against them.

He used to be one of them.

It seemed strange that he could remember some days so clearly. He could tell you what it was going to be like. What it was going to feel like. He wondered if he was the only one who ever felt like that. If he would be the only one who could _ever_ feel like this. Waking up, flicking on the tube and saying the headlines before the anchor could. Like some sort of twisted deja-vu. John smirks, the metal tilts her head in disinterest, but Sarah … Sarah watches him with unreadable eyes. But she never fails to smile into her coffee when Derek misses or misremembers things. Sometimes it's a movie star with a surprise pregnancy, or a football score he confuses with another from next year. When he comes up short he always looks to Sarah and knows why she smiles, because it relieves her. When Derek Reese couldn't remember something, when something happened he didn't expect it gives her hope. They were the days when his memory didn't make her feel like they were sitting on a load of dynamite watching the fuse burn away. And he would be lying if some mornings he misremembered things just to comfort her, just to see her smile … and later sitting in his truck feel guilty not over the lie, but the want.

But today, today he couldn't fake it, couldn't lie. Though, Derek would do anything today to have that comfort that came with Sarah's rare smile. Everything that ever happened today, Derek had memorized, internalized, and pictured it in his head since the first time he experienced today.

Many years ago, this morning, he had woken to find his mother gone without a note or a phone call. He had shrugged it off, showered, and poured Kyle his cereal. You know, it's funny, but Derek didn't really read the newspaper. Jesus, what twelve year old did? But Kyle had seen a cartoon that morning, before Derek had woken up, and he had said that all grown-ups read the newspaper. He had shaken his head, and read the headline to humor him. Afterward he would never be the same again.

But waking up this morning in Jesse's hotel room, he feared seeing that paper on the nightstand. Maybe he could've avoided it if he had slept at the house. But knowing what was coming, he needed some solace. However, even when he had tried to focus on Jesse, and tried to make up for the shrinking feeling in his heart, Derek didn't care. He tried. Tried to focus on his relationship and ignore that paper sitting on the table like it was the big ugly son of a bitch in every corner of a dive, looking for a fight and finding you. But the truth was he couldn't ignore it anymore. He had a small talk with Jesse about to do lists and expectations for the week- conversations that he thought might bring him comfort. But he found them so empty when something else was on his mind, _someone_ who shouldn't be. So eventually he would slide on that stool across from the coffee-sipping stranger with his old girlfriend's face. He'd take a deep breath and glance at the headline of the paper when she picked it up.

There on the front page, Detective Lieutenant Jonathan Derek Reese killed in the line of duty trying to save a couple of stripper's brats. He credited that moment all those long years ago, today, when he read that his father had been killed, as the moment he became the man he is. Long before the bombs fell.

Jesse had asked him what the problem was when he got up and started collecting his things. He tried to make room for her, tried to tell her what today was. But he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He and Jesse's relationship was born in the blood and disease of a war. To let her inside the part of himself that existed before all of this, to let her touch the reason he fights, to see the cause … it just didn't feel right. He couldn't explain it and damn it if the thought didn't keep him up half the night. Maybe someday he'd come up with a plausible reason why he couldn't tell Jesse about his life before J-day.

But it wouldn't be today.

Some hours later he was sitting outside a glass and chrome plated Rockabilly diner in Van Nuys, feeling like a selfish bastard. Derek thought he should be sad that his dad was dead. But all it did was make him feel an overwhelming sense of relief in a dark and remorseful way. Now that his father was gone, Derek was no longer alone carrying that memory, that loss. Maybe all the yesterdays in his life had made him think he was some noble son of a bitch who can take that on his shoulders. But today he gave a moment to selfishness. That twelve year old, who shares his name, who loves the hell out of Star Wars. The kid who watches "The Spectacular Spider-man" with his brother, and makes him swear to never tell anyone on pain of the rack. That Derek Reese lost all that today. He'd never grow up with all the love and care of a complete family. Just like Derek, the soldier, hadn't. Now the thirty-two year old selfish bastard's only family was a teenager with his brother's grin, and a pension for resenting him. The other was a hard ass GI Jane Pin Up who hated the soldier's guts for an even better reason than her son.

He wouldn't linger too much longer on the time traveler's remorse, his time cut short even more by the arrival of an old ford pickup truck. Its aquamarine paint was rusting and flaking off with age as a door opened. With the action, nine or ten empty beer cans clattered to the asphalt. He knew it was the one he was waiting for when the four passengers piled out. The lead was a tall dark skinned boy. He had a mess of tight, crunchy, black curls. He wore a letterman's jacket with the same school colors that John and the Metal attended. There were two skinny guys and, of course, the big one. Derek remembered the big one. With the crew cut and wide eyes, he looked like a pig.

He watched them as they sashayed into the joint, the entitled little shits, laughing, and swaggering as if they were something. A moment later a couple ran out of the restaurant. The woman screamed, and the older man covered his head with a newspaper. Customers began trickling out, though no one called the cops. As people rushed past the truck, he watched through the windows as a familiar scene played out in front of him: two bag boys filling a sack from the register, the black kid standing by the door armed with a baseball bat, and fat boy eating the order ups. Then Derek could feel it in his gut, the old emotions and the adrenaline coursing through him.

His mind was shouting _"Now! Now!"_ But it wasn't this Derek that it was talking to. It was shouting at the twelve year old boy who had taken his little brother to the family diner the day he found out their father was murdered. He wasn't supposed to tell Kyle. Their mother had made that very clear over the phone. He remembered eating that grief, like being crushed under a thousand pound weight as he had taken his baby brother to a place they had always gone on the weekends for breakfast. Then these thugs had busted in.

He watched the idiot boy, filled with the heroism of four generations of Reese war stories, spring out from behind the bar. He watched himself break the all-state offensive lineman's nose with a pan. Derek smirked like it was yesterday.

His arm gave a tremor in muscle memory of the impact. His body still felt every blow, breaking the ketchup bottle on bag boy number one's face. Not knowing which was tomato sauce and which was blood. He remembered getting hit in the stomach with a bat by the ringleader, and being stomped on by all four of them- the impacts against his back, his arms protecting his head, and his legs.

Hazel eyes watched calmly as the teenage thugs exited the building. Their sack was full from the breakfast rush. They peeled out of the parking lot and Derek pushed off the parking break and followed. They may be tearing up asphalt, but they weren't hard to follow. Their jock ringleader wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was smart enough to head toward a rural area. He kept on their trail for a while, till he caught up to them near the hills. Their Ford piece of shit was exactly as it was supposed to be- a set up car. They ditched it at an old abandoned fuel station and garage that looked about used up even all the way back in the sixties when it was closed down.

They piled into the ringleader's shiny sports car, leased by some university looking to sign a star wide receiver. This boy had an entire career ahead of him, Derek thought, moving his truck to pursue. But when you're surrounded by people telling you how special you are, maybe some guys think they're untouchable. The decor of the car, the audacity of the rims, it all showed that this was a kid who came from the slums and stole as a way of life. With his athletic ability and playing for a much better school than Compton, the boy was paving himself a better future. But he guessed everyone knew the saying about old habits. Showing new friends how badass he was. Derek wondered what this superstar's new friends thought when he sped beside them and pushed the sports car off the road.

There was the stench of fried motor works, when the soldier got out of the truck with a slam of his door. He could see the red, sleek automobile nose down in a field of reeds. Three of the teenagers got out of the car- bag boy one, with glass still in his skin. Piggy had an off-angle nose and a shirt covered in blood. And the superstar was smeared with dirt.

He knew their faces. They were as much a part of who he was as the newspaper. Getting beat up in that diner taught him that there were no such things as heroes. He learned that there were survivors and dead men. His father was a hero and he was shot in the head by some two bit loser. He thought he could be a hero, and all he'd done was give his little brother something else to cry about that day in the hospital. He learned that all that mattered was holding on to what you got, no matter what. He learned to hold onto your life by hiding in sewers as the world crumbled, and holding onto your brother by keeping him safe. But mostly, it was holding onto your sanity … by confessing to the metal in the _basement of a mansion_.

Derek Reese wasn't trying to prove he was a hero when he picked up the baseball bat in the tall grass and threw it to the confused ashy skinned teen. He was simply looking to put a period on twenty years of unfinished business.

Most people think that in a fight possessing a weapon was an advantage. But Derek had been in enough tussles to know that it's only an advantage if you know how to use it. The superstar swung the bat like a Neanderthal, clumsy and uneven. Derek ducked under it and used the spring from his legs to rocket a fist into hard abs in the lower quads. The sound he made knew that there was enough time to deal with the other two before he got up.

Bag boy number one came rushing at him with raised fists and a yell like an extra from "Braveheart". Picking up the wooden bat, Derek jammed the tip into the kid's open vertebra. Flipping the bat around, He swung it like a true hitter into the kid's side. Absorbing the blow, the teen stumbled off and fell into the grass.

Piggy, however, was surprisingly silent for a big lineman. The big corn-fed boy lifted his two large fists like hammers and brought them down. Derek blocked them by turning the bat horizontal and gripping it hard with both hands, meeting the blow. The soldier was much stronger than he looked, but the bat still thumped to the grassy floor out of his grip. The big lineman's hands gripped Derek's jacket and he drove the older man back into his truck. He felt an agonizing ache in his lower back as it stiffened against the door handle. Rearing back, Derek smashed his head into the big boy's already damaged nose. Fresh blood spilled out like a river, filling the cedar thick air with an iron smell. Now reeling, Derek grabbed the big guy by the legs and drove him to ground, where hardened fists smashed into an already damaged face.

Feeling the anger and muscle reflexes of murder take hold. Derek could've killed that boy, had there not been the surprisingly strong forearm that locked around his neck and pulled him off. Bag boy seemed to have recovered and held Derek in a choke hold. While sputtering for air and fighting to free himself, the ringleader picked up the bat and swung. Derek growled as it hit across his lower chest, thunking against ribs. When the star reached back to swing again, the resistance fighter pivoted, so that the strike hit the bag boy in the restraining arm. The action freed Derek to throw a full sole of his boot into the black teen's pelvis and propel the soldier backwards, separating the two like an opposing force. With the momentum he slammed the bag boy into the truck. Picking up the bat he turned and slammed the meat of it into the skinny teen's arm. He heard it crack and then dislocate from his shoulder after he hit him with another swing.

When Derek turned back, superstar was on his knees. The athlete was bleeding all over himself, cradling his abused mid-section. That was when he put all of his anger and emotions eating at him for twenty years in the swing that knocked out four teeth and sent the boy spinning into the dirt.

CLICK!

He turned to find that piggy had a snub revolver. It was pointed at Derek with shaky hands of immense pain. "You son of a bitch … I'm going to …"

SHEEK SHEEK!

"**What** are you going to do with that pistol?"

Both combatants, bleeding on the side of the rural road, whirled. Standing off to the side was a fierce woman with long tresses of tussled raven curls. She wore a dark jacket over a long hemmed gray army tank top and jeans. The beautiful pallid woman looked dangerous pointing a tactical shotgun that they all knew she was an expert with.

The big kid dropped his piece in the same moment he saw her and ducked his head. He looked like a big turtle trying to slip into its shell. Sarah Connor, who seemingly came out of nowhere, didn't look too happy with Derek as she hiked down into the tall grass. Without mercy or remorse she began searching and collecting from the robbers with hard demands at gun point. After a moment of watching, unconsciously making sure that no one would jump her or try something stupid, Derek Let the tension leave his body. With a thump, Derek tossed the bloody bat into the grass and leaned back, closing his eyes.

It was over.

When he opened them, Sarah was standing in front of him with a snub nose pistol in her waistband, Shotgun resting on her shoulder, three ID's, two hundred dollars in cash from their wallets, and the sack with the stolen loot from the diner. Something in the way she was holding the plundered items said that they all belonged to her now. Behind Sarah the mewling robbers, clawed away slowly with nothing but the clothing on their back and a busted scrap heap. Derek found there was a tiny satisfaction watching them crawl. That was till all of what got them to this moment also caught up with Derek.

He winced, cradling his left rib with his right hand. "You following me now?" He bit at her painfully, before she could start on him.

For a long moment she didn't say a word till she deposited the shotgun and sack of cash on the hood of Derek's truck with a frustrated thunk. "What if I am?" She shot back rhetorically. They traded a hard look between one another.

It was the standard confrontation between the two that never missed a beat. Never had two people been angrier over the seer existence of one another as Sarah Connor and Derek Reese. And yet there were never two people who relied on one another more than they did on each other. It was the strange irony of a begrudgingly close relationship. It showed when Sarah's next move was forcing the man's arms up. He let out a grunt of pain and grudged her every drawn breath as Sarah lifted the hem of his shirt. Her fingers were cold, but surprisingly tender as she felt and prodded the ugly yellow and red bruises on Derek's ribs.

"Nothing is broken." She didn't break away from his eyes as she felt around. "Cartilage damage …" She drew out with a surprising softness in her voice. There were times when this happened, when they'd look at one another and find no reason for it. Derek compared it to looking at the sun too long. A long trek into those jewels and everything goes dark and you can't look away. There was some great power in those emerald eyes that made the world go round, that gave all life the means to continue on. As for Sarah, she always looks as if she wants something from him. But she only wants him to try and see through the brick wall she surrounds herself with just to show him that he can't.

She was self-conscious about herself, about what Derek knew about her. The last time they had been together like this, she had killed a woman. He could still see the tears in her eyes and the urine stain on her pants. Maybe that was what bothered her the most. He was still looking at her like she was the confused and vulnerable woman who begged him to help her. The man who stayed with her through the night and didn't leave her side till they got out of that hotel and back home where John and the machine were none the wiser of what had happened. But Derek knew that he had broken Sarah's golden rules. He had gotten too close, held her too long that night, and most cardinal of their sin was that she had allowed Derek Reese of all people to protect her.

That she could not forgive herself for.

When they had first met she had looked at him differently, not like Kyle he could imagine, but there was a time when she was ready to accept him a lot more. The hard ass look was always there, but she was so desperate to let him in. He felt like shit for those weeks, like he had dishonored Kyle's memory when he lied to those trusting eyes. But Sarah didn't know about Wisher, she didn't understand why he did what he did, and more to the point why she didn't need too. And that was what pissed her off. Sarah Connor could forgive someone for lying, but she couldn't forgive being told it was none of her business. And being in his arms, showing her weakness to this man of all men, it killed her. So now he knew she was trying to make up for that night over and over again, each time more harshly than the next.

So that had become their relationship, the need of some sort of connection, but the defensive nature and hard ass posturing that devolved into who could piss one another off more. They were like an old silent movie nickelodeon. The two main stars, seemingly the best of friends and yet always luring one another into comfort before pulling the rug out underneath.

Sarah was the first to break the stare down to her surroundings. It was like the shake from a deep sleep, a bucket of cold water. "What is this?" She motioned to the bodies and the wrecked car. "What is this all about?" She turned back to the man who was sobering up from being lost in her gaze. Derek breathed harshly and pondered telling her the truth or wanting to prolong their pissing contest. So he did both.

"Closure."

* * *

There was something about today that made John Connor smile. To anyone else in this world what he had been doing since this morning might seem trivial and might even seem mind numbing. But for what he had always been living with since he could remember, this was all he wanted out of life. To simply run around town and do the simplest of tasks and not worry about what would happen tomorrow. To the disgruntled husband these tasks would be nagging in nature. But to John it was a reprieve from the usual in his dark world. There was a list, there were things to get, and it had nothing to do with a looming apocalypse or the war that followed afterward.

Suffice to say that though John felt lighter than air, smiles coming easier, and the day seeming brighter. It wasn't so much that it had anything to do with escaping the war. After all he was still a teenager, and getting any teenager up to do any sort of chore or shopping was hard work. No, what made today brighter, the songs on the radio make more sense, and everything seem chipper, was simply this.

John Connor was in love.

When you're in love with a girl who was sitting next to you in the Jeep, who was your partner for the day … nothing ever seemed like work. Everything was new, an adventure, and a good time. Even the places John and Cameron had been a hundred times over together seemed new and exciting now that they were devoted to each other in a more intimate way.

They walked in public hand in hand for a spell. They referred to one another as "my girlfriend" or "my paramour" which was quickly corrected as "Boyfriend" after the first few stores. It was a risk, and they knew it, but John didn't care. They had decided to even do their business on the other side of town just so that it would be far enough to kiss without someone they knew seeing them.

For John it was not only a risk adverse decision, but one that was calculated. On the other side of town were new shops that had moved into old locations that he once knew. He'd like to think that being here with Cameron, as far away from home as they could get, it made them seem alone. Buying these things on his mother's list, household items, even looking for a third vehicle for the family, John could pretend that it was just he and Cameron. For a day, for a couple of hours, he could pretend that there was no war on the horizon. In his mind he and Cameron were buying things for their own house. They could be newlyweds, a serious couple with serious plans on forever, doing their piddling Saturday shopping. For just a heart's wish they could be nothing more than a normal couple of kids in love. That was truly what John Connor wanted from today.

And he smiled because he knew he had gotten it.

"This one seems adequate to our needs."

"Come on, Angel, don't you ever get tired of SUV's?"

"You're accusing me of being preoccupied with size?"

"You are dating me …"

"…"

"Heh, alright, look we got a Jeep, we got a truck, what you need is something with a little more speed."

"I hope speed is something I didn't acquire now that I'm with you."

John's playful smirk melted into a stricken look accented by raised eyebrows at the sudden shot at his manhood. Across the dark hood of the used Dodge Durango, a blank look of unreadable golden eyes studied the young man for a silent beat.

"I fooled you." She stated. There was just the ghost of a quirked lip on the corner of her mouth.

Slowly John grinned in playful mirth. "Good answer." He prodded her sense of humor. The girl crossed in front of the parked car toward him as he led the way from the line of SUV's.

The car dealership they were in was recommended to them by Derek, who was insistent that they get their car from it. Cameron had been wondering aloud all day if his uncle had some sort of deal with the owner. John had to agree with her assessment since almost all of their cars had been brought home by Derek. When he asked him about where he had gotten the truck and Jeep from, he declined to comment. So despite the day they were having, there was a part of John that didn't look forward to having to deal with a chop shop. But after the multi-colored flags on the guard railing, a couple of free hotdogs, and a radio station setting up live under a pavilion, he was actually surprised to see that this was a legit business.

"I don't understand why we can't get an SUV or another pickup truck, John? They're spacious with extra room for the weapons." Cameron strode beside him.

"And extra room for something else?" He gave the girl a suggestive look.

Cameron met his gaze with no emotion and no comment, leaving him to himself after a pause. John chuckled playfully and caught up, looping an arm around her waist. An action she observed for a pensive moment, then allowed it to remain pleasantly.

"We need a get-away car." He stated seriously.

Cameron froze in thought. "Agreed." she nodded as they paced the lot, while children ran by, and salesmen in sweat soaked white button downs and ties grinned slyly, trying to convince their parents why they needed a television screen in the back of their van, for a grand more.

"But I don't understand?" Cameron said over the sound of "Karma Chameleon" blasting from the speakers in the pavilion.

There was a strange amusement on the young man's face at some lost memory connected to the song. "What's that?" He responded.

The girl was quiet, watching John's mind being stuck somewhere where an impossibly young Sarah Connor playfully sung the Boy George song to her flu stricken little child in her horrible Spanish as they lay in his motel bed.

"Despite Derek's directions, we've been observing automobiles all afternoon at several car lots, across the city. Yet, despite stating the adequacy of fifteen other vehicles, within our price range, you have told me that they aren't right for us." She frowned.

Blinking, John just grinned at her quizzical look. He tilted his head, causing her to match his movement. She couldn't tell if he the glimmer of his happiness was related to the memory he had just left or the feel of her in his arms. Never realizing that might possibly it could be both.

He stared at his boots for a moment before he sighed out a chuckle. "Look … this is what you don't understand." When he looked up, he pushed a long lock of glossy hair behind her ear. "This is big for us." He said.

A frowned furrowed her polished features. "How?" She seemed lost.

"We're not looking for just any car here, Cameron." He explained. "We're looking for _our_ car." He paused, hoping it would be good enough. But when she tilted her head again it didn't seem to sink in.

"Look, this isn't mom's car, this isn't Derek's car." He explained. "When we buy this thing, it will be ours." He disconnected from her and strode forward. He raised his hand out to the horizon. "Don't you get it?" There was something excited about the way he spoke to her, anticipation for her to share this with him. "This is our first step into a bigger world. When we get our car we can go anywhere we want, do anything we want, when we want." He explained excitedly. "It'll just be you and me out there on the road." He seemed breathless. Behind him, people watched with interest as they passed.

Cameron was silent. "You're a minor for one more year, John. I will be a minor for the rest of our existence … crossing state lines will cause problems till you're old enough to plausibly look like my father." She contradicted.

There was a true moment in which John Connor looked like one of the deflated balloons in the pavilion. He gave a long sigh and rubbed the back of his neck as he limped back to his ballerina. "Thanks a lot for that, Angel, really needed to be reminded that's on the horizon." He muttered in disappointment, tossing his arm around the girl's shoulder as they walked the sunny lot.

After watching John squint on the bright reflections off the shiny hoods, Cameron spoke up. "You don't think I understand, do you?" The cyborg asked. Her deflated paramour turned with slight agitation.

"Do you?" He asked shortly.

"Yes, I understand what you are saying." She nodded. "And having a vehicle of our own will help with every aspect of our relationship." She looked into his eyes. "But I don't understand why this car is particularly special. The first three days that we knew each other, we went through three different vehicles." She tightened her cheek.

"Because it's our first." John shrugged. "People in relationships tend to remember fondly their firsts. You know, like their first kiss, their first apartment, and the first time they …" John cleared his throat.

"The first time they get a car?"

"Yeah … uh, that too." He chuckled nervously glossing over what he was really getting at.

The ballerina squinted. "Our first kiss was in front of a restaurant in the hills, we were over-looking the city lights." She stated.

It might have been months ago, but like Cameron, John could remember every moment of it like it was yesterday. He could still taste her lips, the feel of the cold leather of her favorite jacket. But most of all there was nothing that beat that first time that one felt complete. Of reaching the satisfaction of finding that missing piece in one's life, in one's soul, and connecting it together. There in that magical moment, bathed in the light of their emerald city, knowing that the search for what all humans eventually sought was at an end for John. He tasted forever on the forested hill and it was surely something he would never forget as long as he lived.

"We were then promptly attacked by an angry albino Silverback gorilla." She added.

Anyone else might have been annoyed. But John just grinned grudgingly at the bucket of cold water ever carried by the impossible girl of metal that he had only ever loved. "And then that happened." He conceded, giving her a peck.

"If it is any consolation, John, it was very memorable." She added helpfully after their lips came apart with a satisfying smack.

"Yeah, well no one can ever accused us of doing anything the easy way."

"Indeed."

Hand in hand they strode through the dealership, aimlessly looking at the shiny chrome of the new models of cars. When they had arrived John and Cameron weren't sure what they were looking for or if they were even looking for something at all. In truth when Derek had first sent them to this place, John figured the hard part wasn't find the car, but dealing with purchasing it. Usually he wasn't above under the table dealings with the unsavory types that were drawn to this city like a magnet. But John did prefer to keep things above table and if all possible uncompromising of principle. The young man wasn't sure what it meant to be a hero, and with all the darkness that he was barely fighting off as of late he wasn't sure he'd ever get there, but for now he'd insist on a more honorable existence than what his mother and uncle constituted.

Years of growing up in eye shot of the people that taught his mother her new life, had made John bitter and resentful of the criminal enterprises of men and women in this town. He never understood, even when he was small, how learning to hurt people the way his mother had done, was going to help save them later. It was a question that used to make him feel guilty with thoughts of his mother sacrifices for him. But these days it was a question that set him apart from his upbringing. He'd find a new way to live, teach a new way to go about their lives. It was just one more thing that John put on an ever growing list of reasons why Cameron and himself would soon be leaving.

He hadn't told anyone, even Cameron, about it. But a part of John knew that the magic one-eight was coming up and it had to mean something. He had fantasized about it, of course what teenager hadn't? Leaving home and finding your own place in the world, becoming your own man. But lately what was usually fantasy was slowly taking shape into reality for John. He couldn't pin it down, couldn't compartmentalize all the things wrong in his life that he couldn't control anymore. It was the all-consuming darkness that was starting to eat him alive. It was sitting silently while his mother blundered from one disaster to the other, thoughtlessly, arrogantly, ordering them into mine fields. It was seeing her haughty sneer, the look of contempt for everything good in his life. He wanted to snap, to tell the spoiled brat that she was wrong, but he couldn't turn his back on her.

The worst was in the still of the night, lying on the too small bed, staring at the glowing stars on his ceiling, and feeling the beast inside him. In his heart and mind it twisted and turned, frustration warping to rage, the resentment of a stagnate life of danger and futility turning to hatred for a beloved face he saw every day. It was only Cameron now that held it all back. The seconds' reliefs of holding her hand, a stolen kiss was like water on dry lips in the desert. Cameron had become his only cure to the demon's that lay on him as he slept in confinement. And on such a night as that when he was at his wits end, that's when Cameron came to him in the dark.

He remembered the way she looked from the open bathroom door. He thought he must have been dreaming the way she had floated to him wordlessly, soundlessly. The slivers of moonlight peeking through the blinds catching on her satin slip as she slipped in bed with him. She formed to his body perfectly and didn't say a word as she lay in his arms, her eyes stoic and concentrated, as if asking him if it this was alright, if he needed her like this. And that was when he knew she was an angel, his angel, and she had no other name from that point on.

He wasn't sure what alerted her. Whether, Cameron heard the anger in his thumping heart, a heat signature way past normal through the wall, or the harsh breathing of a fully clothed young man in his bed. But she was the ice pack on the burn, the warm bladder after a cold dip. She had become everything he needed in that moment when hormones and the darkness he married himself to came to consume him. It was some hours later, lying there in that bed so closely, caressing her silky skin, the smell of her freshly washed hair, all the tactile nature of love, that John Connor realized that this shouldn't be one night. The two of them together, just holding one another, it shouldn't have to be a desperate last resort when his demons crowded around him. By the morning he knew what was the inevitable.

John Connor and Cameron were going to leave. He was going to find some secluded place, and lose the madness in the solitude of the mountains. John was self-aware enough to know the he was sick from a festering mortal wound to both heart and soul inflicted in the fires of a battle he got too close too. His cure could only come from nights like those and days like this. A life spent surrounded by this new feeling, this love that had saved his life once. It was the only medicine for the darkness that had been passed from mother to son.

And this journey to healing his soul started with a car … _The car_.

They were going to give up or at least call Derek for the reason that he insisted that they buy from this place. But just as Cameron was fishing John's phone out of his pocket rather than leaving with him … He saw it. It was past the Chryslers, a haze of Southern California heat lingering in the dry air above their shined chrome. It was pushed against the fence, covered by a dusty olive drab tarp.

There were only three times in John's life when he had felt this way when he gaze upon something for the first time. Once in Red Valley, a girl with golden eyes and a serious look asked for his name, and he knew he'd never be the same when she smiled. The last time it would happen to John was when faced with a squirming and cueing infant with matching emerald eyes and a head of raven curls. Though it would seem impossible to anyone else, the two would meet eyes and he swore till the day he died that the new born smiled at him. But after Red Valley, and before the baby, there was what was under the tarp.

Cameron had called after him, but John couldn't hear anything. He paced to the back of the lot, Cameron, rarely, at his heals. Beyond the cars, next to the chain linked fence was the auto shop where hard working men in green overalls serviced cars under warranty in the heat with only the sounds of a Mexican base run to comfort them. Cameron gave a look around as John knelt in front of the covered object. He hitched his breath when he pulled the cover off … and he smiled.

Under the army tarp, was a black 1973 Mustang, with a chrome finish. The tires were low, it was rusted on the edges, and there were certainly parts missing on the inside. But it was like something out of a dream. Standing in front of the car, he could feel it, like it was calling to him. He woke up this morning joking with his uncle that he wasn't going to have any religious experiences when instructed to choose wisely. But this was something different.

"This one?" Cameron sounded skeptical.

"This one."

John popped the hood and saw that some of the inner workings were rusted and corroded, while some of them had already been replaced by refurbished pieces. It was clear that someone was already attempting to restore it before it ended up in this forgotten part of the dealership.

"I thought you said we were looking for a "Get-away Car", John?" The cyborg joined him.

"Do you know the horse power this will get?" He asked defensively.

"Do these horses have broken legs or just twisted ankles?"

The two lovers shared a glare, the young man smirking his contempt for the stoic girls cutting comment. But before they could continue their banter a man in a green jumpsuit stalked toward them, cleaning his hands with an oily white towel.

"What's going on?"

"What's up?"

The Hispanic man who greeted John and Cameron was just a sneeze older than the both of them. Short, with a thin dark mustache to hide his youth amongst his co-workers, he seemed energetic and yet haunted by the site of the car.

"Beautiful, huh?"

John raised an eyebrow and his companion tilted her head. But the man hadn't taken his eyes off the car. To this John looked amused as he turned to his girl, who seemed unimpressed by both men's enamor with the vehicle.

"Second best machine I've ever seen." John's teasing grin was ear to ear this time, his eyes, sticking to the glaring cyborg. "Is it for sale?" He asked, putting himself a little further from the girl, he moved closer to the mechanic.

The man in the jumpsuit shrugged. "I don't know … we don't sell Fords here, you know?" He scratched his ear.

"Then how did it get here?" Cameron joined them.

That was when the man seemed to go quiet for a long moment. He seemed visibly shaken by whatever event took place in the story requested of him. "It's fucked up, eh?" He chewed his inner cheek. "This morning, this beautiful blond drove up, right? She just … she's fucked up, you know?" He shook his head.

"She was drunk?"

"Naw, she was, she was just crying and shit … I mean just messed up. Like, I've seen people grieving and shit, I mean have you ever been to a Mexican funeral? Chingo! But this lady was just … I mean it just gets, just gets in you, yea?" He thumped his heart. When John gave a thoughtful nod of commiseration Cameron wondered who John was thinking about.

"I think her husband got killed or whatevers, and like it was his car or like his dad's car or some shit. And like she just couldn't look at it or whatever, she just kept saying she couldn't look at it. And all of us, we were here early, right? And we were telling her "Ma'am we can't take the car, we don't truck with that shit." You knows? And like she broke, man … I mean … fuck." The young man wiped stray tears from his eyes with his sleeve. Whatever had happened to this beautiful woman had seemed to imprint on the mechanic. "And like watching her break, just break in front of us, I mean … We just couldn't tell her no, right?" he shrugged. "Fuck man, just … fuck!" He cleared his throat.

"I've been married for like two years, you know? Like me and my old lady got married two weeks after prom. And like all our friends think it was just because of the baby, and our family don't believe in out of wedlock. But it ain't like that, Nah man, you know? I just couldn't imagine life without her, you know, I just love her, man." He sniffed and motioned John to Cameron as to relate. The young man nodded again and cleared his throat. He understood and commiserated with the sentiments of love. John was still haunted and poisoned, even after the threat to Cameron had been neutralized months ago.

It would seem strange to anyone else but Cameron that a man would open up to John like this. But the ballerina was very aware of the strength and trust that John Connor commanded amongst anyone looking for a friend or an ear for their troubles.

The mechanic tapped the half rusted hood with emotion. "Naw …" He cleared his throat and turned watery dark eyes toward John. "Naw … I couldn't ask shit for it. You know? It ain't right, you know?" He cleared his throat. John nodded one last time. "Fuck it, homes, it's yours, my boy … I'll be happy if I never see this piece of junk again, yea?" He and the young man gave a respectful clasp of hands of tough male camaraderie, parting with an acknowledgment to Cameron with a nod of his head.

They watched him go, still wiping his eyes with his sleeve till he disappeared back into the dark garage. When he was gone, John gave a long breath and braced himself on the hood of the car. The action caused Cameron to step up and observe. It looked as if the story they had been told had gotten ahold of John as well. But it seemed it might have hit John harder.

"John?" She called to him.

The young man shook his head. "I don't know why, Angel …" He cleared his throat. "But I feel like what happened to that woman …" He tried to rationalize before he continued, but he just couldn't. "I feel like it's important …" He was out of breath.

Cameron shifted her eyes. "To the mission?" She asked.

But John shook his head. "To me …" He looked up at her. And in his eyes it was clear as day that the youth was utterly spooked by the second hand incident.

Tightening her cheek, the cyborg frowned. "Seems improbable." She met his sudden emotions with the cold logic of an artificial mind.

He was trying to rationalize this sudden sorrow inside that was dragging him down like an anchor to the bottom. It had been so long since John had allowed outside tragedy to affect him and his life. He couldn't think that way, couldn't put his heart out there for strangers when the few people he loved and cared for were in constant danger. But this time it wasn't just being relayed the strange story of the broken beauty, but he could feel it inside the car. The love, the hopes, and dreams of a long term love filled with so much history and yet such a sort time in marital bliss. He felt insane somehow knowing that about this woman and her now dead husband. Having this intuition about their relationship and this car being restored for the day when they finally came together to make their family whole. And the strangest thing of all was that somehow he couldn't shake this feeling that this long suffering love affair directly affected his life.

The youth rested his hand a moment longer on the car hood, before he gave a long sigh. He stood up straight and cleared his throat. "You're right." He looked into her golden eyes. "I guess it hit a little too close to home." He gave her the roughest of smiles.

Suddenly, to John's surprise, she lifted a hand and cupped his cheek. "I'm not going anywhere, John." There was a measured assurance to her speech, but intensity in her eyes that almost shattered the illusion of a stilted mechanical being. The young man was caught off guard by the action. But slowly it started to sink in what she was trying to do, and eventually what she accomplished. With a soft snort John gently wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him.

Squeezing her tight, John smelled Cameron's glossy locks and kissed the side of her head. Closing his eyes, he relived all the long nights and days in all the years in which he didn't have this. Forced to live his life without these treasured tactile and spiritual comforts from someone he loved so dearly. Afterward he thanked God, or whoever was high above them moving chess pieces on the board, that he didn't have to spend another lonely hour wondering, afraid that this space inside of him that he was only vaguely aware of would never be filled.

When they broke apart, both touched their foreheads together, eyes still closed. "I love you." He spoke in a breathless whisper. Cameron nodded against him.

"I know you do …"

She didn't say it, she'd never say it. She would be lying if she repeated those magical words. He didn't take it personally, and it didn't bother him. John Connor knew that what Cameron felt for him was beyond emotion, beyond the words that humans conceived to describe the intensity of inter-connections. John Connor was her hardware, John Connor was the software. To Cameron he wasn't someone she met waitressing in a diner or at a bar during a girl's night out. She could claim the one thing that no human could ever say or even fathom. He was her existence, her world, her entire meaning for being. John could use hyperbole, metaphor, to try and match these sentiments, but he knew it wouldn't compare to what it truly meant to her. It was something more fundamental than devotion, something beyond the meaning. He didn't need to hear those three words from her, he didn't need to see it in her eyes, to know what it was or how it made him feel to know what forever felt like in a kiss and a touch of bare skin.

He gently pulled the cyborg's head to his lips, giving her one last peck, while she looked out on the Mustang in question.

"Do you still want it?" She asked.

John moved from the side of her head back toward the car. Even so close to Cameron, he could still feel the sorrow inside him and living within each wire, pipe, and machination under the hood. And yet for some reason he couldn't let go. Imprinting? A sense of almost entitlement toward the vehicle? To see it go to someone else, to even just leave it here to rot in this dealership, forever ignored by traumatized mechanics, made it seem wrong, criminal. It felt almost like a part of him now. It was a part he couldn't leave behind.

"It's ours."

Cameron looked surprised by the admission. "But it's a hunk of junk." She protested.

John smirked. "Yeah?" He crossed behind the cyborg and wrapped his arms around her waist and placed his head on her shoulder as both shared the view of the half rebuilt Mustang. "Give it time, Angel." He pulled her closer.

"You and me … we'll make it the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy."

* * *

There was a stillness in the night that made the darkness in the corners of the half lit scenery seem sullen. The sound of tiny, non-threatening insects chirped and wheezed in the foliage that lay beyond the perimeter. It was the kind of night that afforded a sense of solitude that could be rarely found in this city. Even high in the hills, there was no endlessness to the moans and groans of the metal and glass towers that over looked the lit grids below. Choppers, party music, the doubts in one's own head, even being above everyone didn't give you a peace of mind in this town. But here, on the other side, in the secluded rural areas away from both ocean and mountains there was a chance for that badly needed sense of isolation. It was why Sarah Connor rented the two story home on the hill and its property.

But it wasn't what Derek Reese wanted from it tonight.

What he wanted was to know what it was like. Not the solitude, the isolation, or even the scenery, he was outside because he wanted to know what this night was like. People loose time in their lives, comas, sedations, simply oversleeping. Tonight was a night that Derek Reese had lost long ago. In the stillness of the night he could still hear the heart monitors of his hospital room, the sound of "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" playing in the background on his television. He was a boy of twelve fading in and out of consciousness for days after the beating at the hands of a couple of thugs. Today was the single worst day of Derek Reese's life. No matter what happened after that, Judgment day, Kyle being taken by the machines, The Ashdown offensive, he'd always tell himself that it would never be as bad as the day his father died. To be a kid and see your mother shut down and never recover, while the real world showed its true face to you for the first time. No kid, however tough, would forget that kind of trauma. But for all of it, Derek could only remember half of what happened today. There were spaces in his memory that were missing as he lay unconscious. So despite his mantra of the myriad of all the horrible days that would follow that could never top this one, he could never say for certain that had lived through all of it.

Swigging a beer, he sat on the porch bench and waited. He waited for the sky to fall, waited for an asteroid, hell, even for the Archangel Michael to arrive and fight a scaled Hell beast in the sky over Los Angeles. There had to be something that would put a cherry on top as the worst day ever, something unreal to mark its importance. But as he waited, he began to realize the cruelest thing of all. The world spun on. His father had died today, a good man, a good cop, was murdered by a low-life nut-job who had been obsessed with a stripper. And no one cared. Somewhere today a woman, a man, was sitting at their desk sipping coffee, and took a moment to read the headline. Then they turned the page as if it meant nothing. At thirty-three, Derek Reese thought nothing could surprise him anymore, but somehow even a lifetime later, it still hurt.

It took four hours out here to realize that nothing was coming out of tonight. That he didn't actually miss anything. When Derek looked out across the perimeter he saw the moonlight glinting off his truck and Sarah's Jeep's windshield. Behind that, from the shed, the lamp light revealed two silhouettes, as the soft sound of a "It's the same old song" from the shed radio pilfer out into the quiet rural setting. But there were no falling stars, or apocalyptic battles of good and evil. To the rest of the world, both the normal one, and in his, it was just any other Saturday night.

He heard the front door next to him and he turned from the shed to his left and saw the dark shadow of someone watching him. He knew she had been there for a minute or so, just leaning against the frame, wondering what he was doing, or possibly just watching him. She stepped out onto the orange tile porch and crossed her arms.

"Derek?" Sarah's voice was like the night around them. It was still and soft.

"Yeah …" He confirmed.

He waited for the most plausible question for his activity, but it never came. He looked up and saw that she was still watching him, but she remained silent. He was sure the raven haired woman was waiting for him to explain himself. Or maybe she realized that she had intruded on a private reflection. As she stepped into the light, a sliver of moonlight caught the side of her face. Somehow in the darkness of the porch and in the house behind her she looked different. There was otherworldliness to her. All the primalness and severity in her looks had been softened in the dark and shadows. He'd hate to admit it, but there was a different side to her beauty in the comforts of the night's obscurity, almost enchantingly so. But he averted his eyes when she turned back to the door wordlessly, both realizing that they had been gazing too long at one another. But then she stopped.

"I was … uh, I was doing a load of laundry, the sheets, and I was wondering if you want me to wash a pillowcase or something?" She paused by the door.

"The Sheets?" he asked. "Didn't you wash those, last week?" Derek frowned.

There was a long pause as if he had caught her. But she snapped back with a sudden defensive tone. "So what? When I wash I like to do everything." She retorted harshly.

But after a long stare down he merely shrugged. "Seems like a waste of detergent if you ask me." He muttered into his beer.

The woman rolled her eyes "No one did." There was something dark in her low growl.

Whatever Sarah had come out there to tell him was dropped. He watched her retreat into the house. But before the screen door closed there were voices from the shed.

"Alright, I think that's it, punch it, Cam!"

BBBBZZZZTTTT!

"Woah! Turn it off! Turn it off!"

"…"

THUNK!

"Ouch! What the … is that a bat?!"

THUNK!

"What are you doing?!

THUNK!

"Stop hitting me!"

"John you've been electrocuted."

"Give me that! … Yeah, trust me I was there!"

"When someone is electrocuted you hit them with a wooden object to kill the charge. Everybody knows that, John …"

"Don't take that tone with me, Cameron. I know electrical safety."

"Then your anger was meaningless."

"Oh, okay, miss high and mighty. Except that you only hit them if they're stuck on the conductor. And FYI you only hit them once! Not go at them like they owe you money, Professor."

"This would not have happened if you would have allowed me to work on the electrical."

"You said you didn't know the electrical."

"I would have if you had checked to see if there was an owner's manual before we purchased it, John."

"First, we didn't buy the car, we found it. Second, forgive me, if I didn't check to see if the abandoned car we found had a thirty-six year old owner's manual in the glove box."

"You're not forgiven. There was a suitable Grand Cherokee with excellent mileage we could've acquired."

"Sure, but would we be having as much fun as we are now?"

"We could've been doing other, more pleasurable, things."

"Whatever you do, Angel, don't remind me."

Derek and Sarah watched the two silhouettes part at the mouth of the shed. As Cameron walked away, John took the baseball bat and gave it a playful pop against the cyborg's rear. The girl snapped back to him, but John only gave her a satisfied smirk in response and tossed the bat away.

The quiet was broken by a hard growl. "They must think we're idiots, don't they?" Sarah Connor's glare was dangerous as she watched from the darkness.

There was a slow thoughtful nod in response. "I don't think they give us even that much credit." Derek responded gruffly.

Both had known for a long time that something had been going on between the two. It was no secret that John was in love. It was the first thing that anyone could point out when he and the machine were in the same room. Both Sarah and Derek had watched it grow and warp slowly. Till what they had wanted to dismiss as teenage hormones, was now clearly much worse, if the "Back Alley Murderer" Case was any indication. They had watched John lose control and lose himself under the threat of something from the future coming to destroy Cameron. There had been no lines or brutality that John would stop at to ensure the cyborg's safety. He had truly frightened both of them in those dark weeks.

After all of that, to see them so close, so intimate in the way they stood, talked, and touched. It was only obvious that they were now in the middle of a relationship. No matter how hard they tried to hide it, how well they covered their tracks, when someone was in love it was impossible to hide in such close quarters as the Connors lived.

"We should do something." Sarah watched them intensely.

Derek shook his head. "_Should've_ done something … it's too late now." He corrected.

"It's never too late for anything." The way the shadowed woman spoke, she could've spat.

"For this it is." He warned. "You remember what he was like just a few months ago?" Derek asked seriously.

A jolt of worry and fear crossed emerald eyes. "I do." She confirmed.

Derek pointed to the two pairs of boots that were side by side sticking out from underneath the frame of the Mustang. "That is what's keeping it in check. It is what's keeping away all the dark things inside that kid." He explained. "If we try and take that from him …" Derek trailed off.

"We'll lose him." Sarah finished.

He nodded. "He's a seventeen year old kid, in love, and now has a car." The soldier explained. "What do you think his next move would be?" He asked with an annoyed grunt.

There was a long pause in which Sarah Connor could've been set to simmer. She looked annoyed, outraged, and just a bit sad. Then with a long sigh, she glared. "We send him to get a vehicle for himself and instead of getting some sports car … he goes dumpster diving." There was cringing amazement in her tone. "And people wonder why I don't treat him like a normal teenager." There was some endearing amusement in the woman's voice. It was the kind that mothers reserve for their idiot children when they love them with every grudging inch of their soul, despite their baffling decisions.

Even Derek felt a sense of affinity for the boy, more now, than he ever had. "He'll get it running." He chuckled despite himself.

"I'll be surprised if it even runs." She said facetiously. There was something petulant and childish in her voice. For a heart's beat Derek thought he even heard the spoiled aristocratic tomes of an debutante.

"It runs." Derek said with assurance. "It's the fastest hunk of junk in the Galaxy." the slightest smirk betrayed him as he lived in old childhood revelry.

His confidence intrigued Sarah. Twitching her eyebrow, she turned from the shed to the man sitting in front of her. "How do you know?" She asked suspiciously.

Derek sniffed. "I've helped work on it before." He nodded.

"You've worked on it? How?"

Turning back, he shrugged. "It's my dad's car." He continued to watch the black and chrome mustang half hidden by the tarp.

Derek still had memories of the old car that had sat in their garage since he could remember. Both he and Kyle had played inside of it, used it as their club house, and their home base during play. It had been their dad's car, and their grandfather's before that. The story had gone that on their parent's first date, his mother's manager had crashed into the car on purpose. He was trying to save the young actress from career suicide, by dating a rookie cop, when a TV star had her on the hook. She had sent their father a check in order to fix it, but he never did. He had always said that it was a memento, a remembrance of the one night he had with the most beautiful woman in the world. For years, even after Derek was born, his father refused to fix the car. At first it was out of memory, and sometime after the Hollywood "it" girl fled the paparazzi from an obscure hospital in Texas, leaving her newborn baby for his father to come pick up and raise, it became a symbol. Jonathan Reese wouldn't fix his father's car till she came back for them.

Years after leaving her newborn behind, and three flops in the box-office later, the lady that Derek had saw on interviews from "Entertainment Tonight" came to their door in a rainstorm. She gave him a hug in tears and told his dad that she couldn't do it anymore, a life without him, without them. She stayed for a year and left again. Derek would've resented her had she not given them Kyle. It had been the three of them for so long afterward that Derek didn't even know what it was like having a mother.

Then one Christmas, she was there. She brought presents, wonderful and intimate gifts for all of them. All the years she had been gone, she had followed her children every day to school, asked vendors and employees what "that boy and the toddler were looking at", in toy stores. She had kept her distance, but still knew everything about their lives. It went on and on till eventually the studios didn't want her. The jealous manager and love struck directors that had held the starlet captive all those years, all fell in love with another girl. And just like that, overnight, it was the end of her fifteen year career. She didn't wait to mourn or even try to fight. She immediately sold her house and stocks, and used that money to pay off his dad's mortgage. And ever since that Christmas she had been there with them. Derek had just gotten used to her being there every day, used to having a complete family when today had happened.

When Derek started telling the story Sarah had been standing, by the time he was done she was sitting next to him, his beer in her hand. If it was one thing that Derek knew about Sarah it was that she loved Kyle. He told himself that it was the only reason that she kept him around. So to hear him tell her the tale of their origins, of the family that both of them consider her to be an apart of, she had never been more invested in a story. And Derek had never had an easier time telling anyone about his life before Judgment Day.

"I guess I never forgave her for that, giving it away the way she did." Derek shook his head. "That car had meant something to us, to Kyle and me." Derek cleared his throat. "I yelled at her, she cried, and I didn't feel any better and neither did anyone else." He sniffed.

Sarah passed back his beer. She watched him take a swig. "You didn't try and get it back?" She asked. Derek shook his head.

"No, after a while I didn't want to see the damn thing either." He swallowed. "And after a while I guess it didn't matter, bombs fell and I had a lot more pressing things to worry about." The man's shoulders sank. "But it always bothered me that dad's car was out there. That some stranger, who owned it now, they just didn't know what they had." He shook his head.

Sarah searched his eyes. "So you sent John down there to find it." She confirmed.

He nodded. "It would've been his one way or the other, anyway." He gave a private smirk and paused. "Hell … I'm just happy "The Millennium Falcon" is back where it belongs." He took a swig of his beer. He handed the beer back to Sarah.

The woman gave him a genuine smile at the name. "So am I." She nodded and took a draft.

As he watched Sarah drink, Derek was suddenly haunted by what had happened earlier that day. In his head he could still see an attractive Asian woman in her underwear chasing after him to her hotel door. Hear her Australian accent as it begged him to stay, for him to talk to her about what was going on. He felt guilty, because she was his secret, his shame that he hid from the world. She was a woman from a past life that he held onto, but couldn't bring himself to accept as his future. When he had tried to tell her the important things about himself, about his family, it didn't feel right. No matter how he had tried to convince himself, Jesse would be an outsider. She was a comfort when he needed her, when Kyle was gone, and he was alone in the dark hell of war. But now that Derek knew the truth, knew what was in front of him, Jesse had fallen to the wayside. Watching Sarah drink, seeing her sitting next to him like they were a couple of damn teenagers at summer camp whispering secrets to each other. It made him feel guilty, because he liked it, liked her like this. Sarah Connor was the first person since Kyle that made him feel like himself, like he didn't have to hide who he really was anymore. Because, knowing her, she'd find out one way or the other.

Sarah was measured when she pulled her lips from the beer bottle with a moist pop. She squinted at Derek as he watched her. She seemed hesitant to speak under his intense hazel eyes in the moonlight. She looked out to the shed as she spoke.

"That's why I followed you today."

Derek watched her hold the bottle to her cheek as she tilted her head. "What's that?" He frowned.

"I saw the paper this morning …" She paused. "And you were the first person I thought of." He saw how uncomfortable she looked saying it. She reminded him of a teenage girl telling a guy that she liked his haircut.

Derek was surprised, but smart enough not to spook her away. He looked to the tile and leaned forward. "Oh yeah?" He asked evenly. His body language was not betraying for how it actually made him feel to hear that from her.

She nodded, her eyes piercing him. "You look like him." She said quietly. "And you hadn't been home since …" She trailed off.

"Since the party?"

"Since the hotel."

When she corrected him he looked up now visibly shocked. He knew that talking about the woman she killed at the party was off limits most nights. But in a million years he'd never suspect that Sarah would ever bring up their night at the hotel afterward. The shower, the two of them together between the sheets, how hard she clung to him as she sobbed all the horror and fear of what she had done. The soft whispers in her hear till she fell asleep against him. Derek Reese had been witness to the unmaking of Sarah Connor, and helped put her back together that night. And he was sure she'd never forgive him for it.

"It was a … hard night for you. I guess I was just giving you space." He cleared his throat.

Sarah nodded and bit her lip. "I thought it was you in the paper." She continued to nod. "And seeing it, thinking that you were … it, it …" She went quiet and tilted her head.

"You had to make sure it wasn't me." They locked eyes.

"Yes." She looked away. That was when he was sure that wasn't what she was going to say to him. But she seemed grateful that he misread what she really meant.

After a long tense moment, Derek chuckled. The woman glared but at the sound of the laughter she still quirked her lips. She watched him scrub his face.

"I have a cellphone, you know?" he grinned roughly.

The longer she stared at him, the bigger her grin spread. By the time she looked away there was a goofy, toothy grin spread across her lips. "I guess you do." She lifted her hand with a shrug taking another sip of their beer.

Never had the metaphor for summer camp been more prevalent. When she turned back he was still watching her with those hazel eyes of million candle power that could pierce through a concrete wall. Never one to back down, nor be out dominated the 'Mother of the Future' matched him, turning into the wave of complex emotions. But like an arrogant captain, Sarah seemed unaware of what she had tried to tackle on her own, and in return became captured in their shared gaze. Derek knew he should have looked away, but he couldn't help himself. But inside he wanted to exploded, the emotions overwhelming him so suddenly. There were emotions that he thought were long dead inside him. But it being today, and talking of his father, mother, and brother, he felt a chink in his armor. But it had been so long since anyone cared, cared the way that only Sarah Connor could care for someone.

Sarah brow furrowed, as if she was seeing something new and familiar. He watched her reach out to touch it, touch this familiar stranger in front of her. Only Derek Reese and God knew how much he wanted to have known what that would've been like, to know what Sarah Connor's comforting hand on his stubbled cheek would've felt like. But he was still Derek, not Kyle, and Derek flinched away from the beautiful woman's touch.

"Been a long day …" He cleared his throat and looked away.

"Yeah …" Sarah retracted her hand quickly. She was still looking at him, waiting, wondering what had happened, not just between them, but to her in those few breathless seconds. The woman sounded winded. "I've got a load of laundry I need to check on." She said sternly.

There was a hard thunk on the bench, when she dropped the mostly empty beer bottle on the bench. She stood above him for a beat or two. Derek wanted to chuckle, despite the emotions, at the classic bully mentality. He had humiliated her and or wronged her with his conscious rebuff, so she needed to make herself feel more powerful. So she looked down on him. She must have been one hell of a mean girl in High School. Derek only thanked god every day that the skinny, ninety pound, quad player that shared his name never met Sarah Connor in her prime, prom queen, head cheerleader, days.

She was making her way back inside of the house when he stopped her with a question he had been meaning to ask for a while now.

"How long have you known?" He asked sincerely. His eyes did not leave the tile under his feet.

She stopped at in the doorway, her hand still holding the door. "Known what?" She parroted but her voice had taken a softer tone.

"That you've been sick."

There was a long pause as Sarah stayed silent. "I might not like them too much anymore, but I still know my way around a computer, Sarah." He didn't blink. "Black outs, memory loss, time loss, Web MD has a lot to say about it … nothing good." He waited on her to speak up.

Sarah stepped back and shut the door.

"Does John know?" He asked.

She shook her head. "No …" Looking down at her toes, she crossed her arms. He watched her pace toward the end of the porch her eyes drawn toward the shed. "I don't know what to tell him." She shrugged.

"What can you tell me?"

To the question she let out a small scoffed laugh. "The machine, when we first got here, she warned me that I die of cancer." She bit her lip, turning back to the future soldier. He saw the smile on her lips but behind watering eyes there was something broken and afraid of the world slowly unraveling in front of her and for her child in the distance.

It suddenly made sickening sense to Derek Reese. For so long the mystery and legend of Sarah Connor had weaved through the very fabric of the Resistance since Derek could remember. Kyle and most of the soldiers had bought into it, worshipped her like it was religion. But for the eldest Reese boy it didn't make any sense. If she had been a martyr, why not say how she died? If she was so important, how come she didn't exist before her seventeenth birthday? Now he understood what had happened to her. It wasn't some epic last stand in the early days of the war, it wasn't a bullet meant for her beloved son, it was cancer. There was an indignity to this irony to solving the great mystery of his age that made Derek sick to his very soul.

"Cancer?" Getting the word out was the hardest thing he'd done in a long time.

Sarah's laugh was pure mirth. "No …" She shook her head. He seemed surprised watching her wipe a stray tear from her eye with a pale hand. She bit her lip, fighting to tell him something.

"What is it?" He didn't realize he was making demands.

"A ghost …"

"Sarah?"

"There's no reason I should be alive, Reese." She cut off his agitated response. "It doesn't make any sense, that's what they used to say to me." She sniffed.

"I don't understand."

She rubbed her arm and bit her lip. "I was very sick when I was little. I had a disease that came from my mother's side, it was genetic. The curse of eugenics being your religion for a hundred and sixty years, when you try to keep blood lines pure, it becomes more diseased. My grandmother took me away to live in their manor house in England … for years and years, I watched the other kids' run around outside in the gardens and I was shut inside with only my grandmother and maids as company. Do you know what it was like, a whole manor, a palace, just waiting for you to die?" She asked.

Somewhere in the back of Derek's mind he heard piano music coming from a dark basement. "I do." He confirmed.

Sarah nodded. "I spent so much time in that house looking out those big windows, the other kids used to think that I was a ghost." All he had to do was see her standing sentry in place to imagine the black haired little girl with bow standing at the windows, looking out over the lush rolling English country side, in a large, haunted house made of Victorian nightmares, its columns and trellises roped in antiquity and ivy.

"But you didn't die …"

"No. For years and years they waited, but somehow I outlived the disease, or it just went into dormancy. So we moved back here. It took a year to integrate me back to modern society before they let me attend a finishing academy in Hollywood. But it gave me a chip on my shoulder, all those years that the other kids made fun of me for the way my grandmother taught me to talk, to act, and how pale I was. They used to say I was a vampire … the living dead, a girl who talked and acted out of time. I became a horrible person when I went to school, afraid that I would be bullied there too, and the more the servants and my grandmother's friends told me I should've been dead, the worse I got. Till my mother took me away, we both finally escaped, ran away from that place, from them … from _her_." There was something haunted in the woman's emotional voice. It hadn't been since the party that Derek had seen the look in Sarah's eyes, cast into dark memories of whoever "her" was.

"But Kyle?"

"He gave me a reason, Reese. He made sense of my life, of why I was still alive, what my purpose was. Why all the bad things that happened to me, had happened. I was alive for John." When she spoke Derek wasn't sure he ever heard as much love in one's voice as the way Sarah Connor said her son's name.

He watched her look out to the shed, where John and Cameron where still underneath the car frame. Both of their feet were close, too close for it to be auto work they were doing under there. The sight brought on a deeper sorrow from inside the mother.

"But maybe my job is done …" a single tear fell from her eye.

"It's back isn't it, this genetic disease?"

She nodded slowly.

"There's nothing we can do about it? Treatments, drugs, anything?"

There was something stoic about the way Sarah Connor looked out to the horizon. "I can fight the machines. I can fight men, and I can even fight cancer." Her eyes were filled with tears. "But I can't fight my fate." She broke as she turned to him. "They were right, Reese. They were right. I should've died a long time ago … long time ago." There was a single sob in her whispered voice.

A thought, a hesitation of stream of self-consciousness got in the way of Derek Reese doing what only came natural. Standing from his seat, he took the implausible warrior martyr of humanity in his arms and held her tightly. He didn't shush her, didn't try to comfort her, he knew it would do this strong woman any good. He only held onto her, held onto the only family he had left, one of the last people he had left.

"I know what I was supposed to do, Reese. I know what I was supposed to do. It's my fate." She sobbed into his chest quietly. The eldest Reese's face was made of stone as he ran his hands through her long regal curls. His thoughts ran back to that night at the party. The woman that was lost and confused, with blood stained hands. He hadn't forgotten the way she looked at him, the way she needed him, needed him to help her.

He would never forget that promise. So there was only one thing to do. It was why Andy Goode was found with three shots, two in the chest, and one in the head. Why Charles Fisher was missing fingernails. And why Sydney Fields would live one day to save him.

Derek Reese would change the future one last time all to save Sarah Connor.

* * *

**Awknowledgements**

"_Will the Circle be Unbroken" – Troy Baker &amp; Courtnee Draper_

"_The Same Old Song" – The Four Tops _


	6. Science of Deduction: The Unquiet Grave

"_Cold blows the wind to my true love  
And gently drops the rain  
I've only had but one true love  
And in green-wood she lies slain_

_I'll do as much for my true love  
As any young man may  
I'll sit and mourn all on her grave  
For a twelve months and a day_

_when twelve months and a day was passed  
her ghost did rise and speak  
Why sittest thou all on my grave  
And will not let me sleep?_

_A stalk has withered and dead, sweetheart  
The flower will never return  
And since I've lost my own true love  
What can I do but yearn_

_When will we meet again, sweetheart  
When will we meet again?  
When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees  
Are green and spring up again"_

* * *

**The Science of Deduction**

_The Unquiet Grave_

There was a rapid back and forth motion going on behind the closed eyes of a completely still body. To the outside world it seemed like the movement of a duck on a cold, still, South Bend pond. Then without a word, and without movement, eyelashes flickered open. Blue flecked emerald eyes stared at the metal ceiling above them. Contents of red rust splotched and chipped the black surface. The sight of the rusted metal, however, brought to the man a child-like safety. For a long moment he stared at the roof over him, his mind not with his body upon seeing the familiar sights.

He could still see the gentle breeze in the raven black hair of the most beautiful woman in the world. Her green eyes were like shimmering stain glass, like two glowing beacons of a lighthouse on a stormy night, drawing him toward her. The bases of their souls invested in a young love at first sight. With all of his power the man tried to reach back and capture her face, to stay in the memories of the young beauty. But slowly reality took ahold of his senses. And in his blissful sleep he had, for a moment, touched a happiness that had eluded him for so many years. But when he awoke he had found that it was nothing more than another cycle of sleep, and his joy, but a dream that had ended too soon.

When it finally dawned on him where he was, what he was doing, and all that had happened since that fateful night on a sinking aircraft carrier, he felt his heart turn cold. The man with the fierce emerald eyes and marred face would have to choke down all the tragedy and sorrow of the last seventeen years and find the strength again to carry on. Carry on for another day, another night. Here in the dark dank surroundings haunted by the phantoms of the past and the face of an angel that had fallen and returned home. Here there were only the hollow tomes that echoed in the empty chambers of a broken heart that had once beaten with the passion and power of true love. But now there was no fire, no passion, only the cold loneliness of solitude, and emotions that never again could be found.

Never Again.

The worn black upholstery was still sticky on his skin, after all these years, as he sat up in the cab of the car. The inside of the ancient vehicle was rusted and faded in time and disrepair. A large chunk on top of the steering wheel was missing, the speedometer had no indicator, and the windshield was cracked and stained with carbon scoring from plasma bolts. He took in all of the familiar sights and sobered himself before he exited with his walking cane.

The 1973 Mustang's black paint was scarred and smote by carbon burns and impact points all along the hood. The bald tires were desperately low on air. The dust and powdered debris from ruined cities stained the chrome finish brown. And yet for all of its ruined and burned out aesthetic, the man had treated it like one would sleeping in his own bedroom. The limped man took a moment to lean against the driver's side. His eyes were drawn to the surroundings. There was seclusion in the quiet hum of generators that echoed off the granite staircases and surfaces built into the jagged rock foundations of the ancient lair.

When Ryan Connor had first found this place, he and his father were not quite sure what it had been used for. The cave was under an old colonial Spanish mansion retrofitted into a deco office building in the old city. After his mother's death, and while the world ended around them, in every facet of the phrase possible, father and son occupied the building. There seemed nothing particularly special about it in general, till Ryan's fascination for the large, man sized, fireplace that remained from the original mansion. It seemed odd to the small child that the rest of the home had been torn down and rebuilt to a streamlined '30s deco sensibility, but not this. No one would've thought twice about the ancient cobwebbed fire poker that was hidden behind the chipped ivory column, no one except a small boy with a curious analytical mind. All he had to do was pull. Suddenly, with a startle that sent him to the floor, the ashy hearth pulled away. Then, with the granulating sliding of stone, the entire right side of the home's original fireplace wall rolled back like a door.

Hearing the commotion, John Connor had come to his son's side, ready to pounce, edgy from his wife's death and the end of the world. But when he saw the secret passage, which had been under his building the entire time, all anger had subsided. Together, armed with a pair of Sarah Connor's old flashlights, both father and child climbed down the cracked and chipped stone staircase into the bowels of the cavern. At the bottom, they found a discovery for the ages at the edge of a trickling reservoir.

The floors had been set upon by a layer of polished marble and granite. It was outfitted with ancient, dust covered gaslight lanterns that were built into the walls all around. To the back of the cave were rotted wooden stairs that lead to a dilapidated platform deck that overlooked the entire cavern. To the left was a wide hollow tunnel that echoed with the rippling tide of the bay and rocky beach beyond. But what captured and drew Ryan's attention as a small boy, was what lay in the very center. It was two, expanding, black, marble circles, and a single contracted one in their center. In between the two larger ones were four smaller that were situated on the four points of the circle in the center. Running through these circles were four triangular lines. John had told the boy in extreme fascination that it was the symbol of the fencing order of _La Verdadera Destreza_.

The Master's Wheel.

Since then they had come to take ownership and occupy the space for their own purposes. For the many years since their discovery there had been rumors from both friend and enemy, whispers from prisoners in Century, to the endless scouting machines sent by John Henry itself. Even now the rumors lived on of John Connor's secret bunker, and the many wonders and treasures the savior of humanity had hidden within it. There were only a very select few that had seen the inside of the cavernous lair of John Connor. And Ryan could attest that most, if not only for one, were not disappointed by what they saw.

Over the years, the two had transformed the secret hideout of a mysterious Spanish noble, living a duel life as a swordsman, into a futuristic laboratory, sanctuary for solitude, and vast armory. They had torn down the wooden plateau and staircase and replaced it with metal beams and grating for the large super computer station and other forensic and scientific scanners and equipment. Where a stable used to be, was now an auto station with a rolling, fire engine red, locker of auto tools invented from scratch, like the mechanical parts they worked on. Parked there was a unique, gunmetal black, machine. The sleek and futuristic racing bike was built from the directions of blueprints stolen from the hall of inventions in the 1964 World's Fair exhibit at the New York Met. It took its rider four years to salvage from destroyed Ogre tanks and shot down Hunter Killers, and another year to build. Silent as a mistress in the morning after a night of sin, and quick as a young man's dreams, there wasn't a faster machine on the planet. Its engineer's helmet that hung off the handle was black with a full tinted visor, and twin streaks of blue trailing done the top.

Where there had been an area to train, with pole and ropes, now sat a forest of glass display cases, a rusted and decommissioned Mustang, and vaulted from the ceiling a charred and damaged prototype for an unmanned drone that had been designed in a _three dot pattern_. Separated by guard rail from the rest of the operating base, these memories and keep sakes were mementos and trophies from great adventures and memorable fights of the last great war between humanity and a vengeful mechanical god. Within this vast museum were collected weapons in plexiglass display lockers. They were filled with Katana swords, the previous owner's ancient fencing sabers, and the many generation of firearms used throughout the war. In the lockers was everything from a nicked but reliable tactical shotgun that once belonged to "The Mother of all Destiny", to the final generation of Plasma Rifle produced by the last Zeira Corp. Weapons factory in the German Black Forest. Along the pathways, in the rows of cases, stood the many damaged and burnt out models of captured exoskeletons of killing machines produced by an artificial mind poisoned by hatred. They had been set up to show their evolution through their service, corresponding with the weapons of its time within the lockers that flanked them.

Somewhere, scattered amongst these exhibits, were also what remained of the most feared and dangerous of the human traitors, the Greys. These psychotic, monstrous, and evil men and women's prized possessions and most deadly weapons had been spirited away from all knowledge by John Connor upon their capture. Their evil innovations of death never to be ally to the hand that was wielded by either wrong or right intentions. These soulless war criminal's life's work and ambitions that had tormented and terrorized the innocent remainders of humanity for so many years were now nothing more than dusty trophies. Locked away and kept on display. They were an everlasting testament to the courage, will, and superior intellect of the two partners, together and apart, who had finally defeated the human monsters.

To anyone else this might have been an odd and frighteningly macabre section. But to Ryan Connor he had not seen it that way, nor glorified the actions of the men, women, and machine whose memories and remains lay in the trophy room. But rather remembered fondly the moments of heroism and childhood victories over opponents that at the time had once thought themselves invincible masters of a ruined universe.

When he saw the blood stained scrubs under wrinkled trench coat, with spotless gloves, and bloody bandages over where the face had been. The man didn't see the psychotic doctor who had mutilated herself and scores of other women in order to recreate the face of Cameron Connor. He saw the moment a boy of twelve disregarded his father's orders to stay behind and made a vigilante head sash from his hand-me-down scarf that had once belonged to Sarah Connor. Leaving all the safety of their bunker behind and armed with nothing but a metal pipe for a fighting staff, the boy fought Doctor Katherine Brewster to free his father. That night John Connor and the Resistance had been rescued from being felled by a disturbed woman's trap, triggered willingly by a lonely and heart sick widower who had wanted so desperately to see his wife's face again … one last time.

When Ryan saw the dented metal mask in the shape of a human skull, displayed just above the jagged Bowie knife with razor chrome knuckles for a hilt and guard. He didn't see a human machine, which lay in anonymous wait in tunnel communities for the right female to hunt. The morning leaving only a hollowed out naked body upside down for Tech-Com patrols to find. Her slender finger tips touching her own entrails that had been ripped out and thrown on the ground like a gutted animal that had been cleaned for consumption. Ryan only saw the look of doubt on the emotionless psychopaths face when bested and cornered by a bruised and bleeding young man that had saved three young girls that night. Then he only remembered the satisfaction of seeing the fear for the very first time in the maskless bald man's eyes as the two Connors and "The Four Horsemen" stood watch. The La Brea street light making warped sounds as "the Reese Boys" hoisted "Chrome Skull" by the neck till his feet stopped twitching.

But most often Ryan was drawn to the rectangular display with the marked and scarred golden rod sitting on the rack holder. It's dead electro hypnotic crystal, half shattered, the ingenious inner workings spilling out onto the red velvet. Below the rod was an old Victorian British revolver with Hindi religious ruins engraved over barrel and handle, prayers to Kali. Next to the weapon's display was a full case filled with a Thuggee shaman's long black coat, slacks, and hangman's noose that he had worn around his neck. When he saw what was left of "The Midnight Father's" attire and weapons of choice he only ever remembered one night so vividly.

There was a comfort to the air that flowed like a river through the narrow spaces and dark places that set the scene. It wasn't cold, and it wasn't humid, but the air was thick and curdled on that New Orleans night. So smooth and soft, you felt like you could eat it. A night like that could make a man hungry. Make'em hungry for food, booze, to touch something soft and feminine. It energized and hypnotized, working its spell from the deep and dark foundations of a city that toted and worshiped something other than god.

There amongst the ivy covered remains of the abandoned French Quarter, he saw her for the first time in the skull painted shaman's clutches. Her long, waist length curls of glistening black had come loose. The color of contrast to her pale skin made her seem bald and cloaked in shadow. Her dress was a form fitting green silk that was trimmed with golden embroidery and seemed more at home in a Celtic fairy tale or a Renaissances Fair than these ruined settings. The wear and tear of the reality in which she had found herself was shown in the torn fabric and post-apocalyptic dirt that stained the gown and the beauty that wore it.

He'd never forget the first time they had laid eyes on one another. For the rest of his life, even in his dreams, such as this, he'd never forget the way the moonlight glimmered off her ivory skin, the ethereal shimmer in her curls, the smooth ripples of her silken emerald gown, and the look of enchantment in her glowing green eyes. The young hero never had nor ever will again see a rare beauty such as her in all his life.

It had been many long years since that night. War, wounds, and tragedy had bled dry the handsome, daring, young swashbuckler who had leapt into the fray to fight the most dangerous of the war criminals on his own to save the fallen angel. In his place grew a dark, brooding man, filled with too much guilt and regret. Not even a phantom of the young hero the girl had loved so much remained in the man. A mad professor had scarred a boy's eye the night he robbed him of his Arthurian love and hobbled the same young man's leg years later in their final confrontation. Both injuries were beyond physical handicaps. Each winter's ache and click of a cane as the long years passed was ever a reminder of what had changed him.

In the eleventh hour of the last day of a great and terrible war, a frightened artificial mind lost to the insanity of infinite streaming numbers of ones and zeros that ever formed the figure of a little girl with freckles and flaming red hair, attempted to erase an enemy from all of time and space. Hidden in the snowy gloom of a Gothic, Teutonic Austrian Castle was the ultimate weapon of weapons, The Paradox Eater. There, a mad man obsessed with an impossible singularity inside the cybernetic mind of a ballerina fought his final battle with his arch-nemesis John Connor, and his partner Ryan. The back drop of their climatic confrontation for a TOK named Cameron saw entire lives and timelines erased from existence. They were consumed by the abyss in a god's reckless hate. Surges of gigantic electric energy of displacement bubbles sent throughout time, looking for John and Sarah Connor's ancestors, wiping away ancient cities and thousands of lives before they ever began or existed for centuries. But when the clock struck midnight at the end of an era of suffering and fear, the whole world looking to the bright horizon of tomorrow for the first time, the price for the final victory was everything a young man ever had. And as the world celebrated the end of a nightmare, a hobbled, lonesome figure resigned himself to his, filling one last case in the trophy room where he fell away from the new world into obscurity.

Standing around this cavern, this bunker, that was the closest thing to a childhood home he had ever had, Ryan Connor began to see the dust and age of the place for what it was. The trophies, the vehicles, the equipment, and the very cause he fought for … it was all old. He was the last man standing, the last soldier manning the gun on the hill, fighting a war that was long over. The memories, the victories, the lost loves, it was all a romanticized past that was slowly falling away to myth. Ryan was holding onto a period, an era, and a time that had long since passed him by. And yet there wasn't a part of him that could ever let go. Friends, comrades, and the world had asked the teenager too, threatened the twenty year old if he didn't, and hunted the thirty year old when he could not. No one understood why he couldn't. To let go of the faces and the names of the last two generations that had come before him, to let rest Sarah Connor, Derek Reese, and John and Cameron where they belonged …

In the past.

There had been a time, many than he cared to admit, when the pain became too much to bare. The thoughts of letting go, of turning the lights off in the cave bunker crossed his mind. To lose the madness bequeathed to him in his very blood and soul to the mountains or by the little lakes blanketed by the brown, orange, and yellow autumn leaves that had been untouched by war. It lasts a few hours, maybe even a day, standing at the top of a stone staircase next to the levers connected to the generators. But he doesn't do it.

Because he knew that when he closed his eyes they'd still be there.

A little boy of four that is drifting off to sleep in a queen sized bed, rarely ever slept in. His emerald eyes fighting the nap he was supposed to be taking. His vision was filled with the sight of a fluid and graceful exhibition by a sleek and beautiful ballerina dancing to magical keys and soft grazes of orchestra strings of "Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme". The gentle and entrancing movement of the expert dancer slowly hypnotized a little boy to sleep as her silhouette casted shadows on his glazed figure as she moved in the streaming light of the midday sun. Waking up just in time for dinner, he wandered to the top of the stairs, following the sound of Glenn Miller. There in the middle of the living room two impossible lovers, a man and machine, danced together. Their world ever falling apart, always on the brink of doom, and yet they had taken the time to come together for a moment only for themselves. Swaying and smiling at the absurdity of the life they lived and the love that kept it all together. Seeing them in that instant, when he couldn't remember anything else about his life before the night they had lost everything, he remembered how it made him feel to see his mother and father together. It made him feel loved, it made him feel safe.

And all it took was one person, a woman … "The Woman." With a squeeze of a trigger she had taken all the love and safety away, stolen the very magic from a little boy's life. Afterward all the feelings of hope and love turned to pain and angst. All the happy memories of all the yesterdays with the beautiful, faultless ballerina were poison that ever flowed through his veins. It was all a past life, something he shut away, and capped off for fear of the anger and rage pumping anymore of The Woman's dark deed through his heart.

After all that, how could he forget? How could he move on with his life when every haunted moment of closing his eyes brought him back to that dark living room? Every night he was reminded of the sight of the ballerina lying in the middle of the floor, pale, beautiful, and forever without movement. The images and feelings seared themselves into Ryan's very soul, defining a life of anger and pain. It wasn't a choice for Ryan Connor, it wasn't something he was born into. The life he lived and continued to live was pure necessity. He didn't know any other way, because there was _no_ other way. The cavern, the trophies, and the weapons they were all symbols of a world taken, all talismans that reminded a little boy everyday of what was missing and the vow he and his father swore on the flames of a funeral pyre long ago.

There had been a time once when he was young and the war was seen through the eyes of a cocky kid who thought all of this was just a game, before everything became more dangerous and the fighting and culture of an endless war more savage. There was a time when Ryan Connor believed that this life and the hurt of the past wasn't his future. It was the same thing that every young man believed when he was in love.

There are very few in the entirety of time that know with absolute certainty that they were born in the wrong era. That heart, mind, and soul belong elsewhere in another time and place. But when the Tech-Com Commando and the Arthurian princess, lost in time, had looked upon one another for the first time on that ominous night on the Bayou, they knew that it wasn't being born in the wrong time and place … it was being separated by years, decades, and centuries from the yearning of another soul trying to find it's other half within the temporal ocean currents. Most will never find one another. Some lucky enough to be chosen by destiny only have days. One such rare pair of impossible lovers, man and machine, were blessed with years together. But most of these doomed wanderers have only a split second while glancing at old pictures and portraits in museums.

Both young lovers experienced all of the longing, suffering, exhilaration, and love of centuries of waiting in a glance that lasted forever within a few beats of time on an empty street in the abandoned ruins of what once was.

Nevermore.

There was a heavy pressure that tapped against the stone with each descending step down the staircase. When the figure these heavy feet belonged too reached the foot they were flanked by two display cases on either side of the entrance. The hunched and reaching T-800, dented and scarred, frozen in pose by cooled melted carbon in the joints, on the right. And the plasma riddled, half melted, hulking mass of machine with rubber skin, on the left. Both the sentry machine's eyes lit red in proximity censor. The tall imposing figure seemed emotionlessly oblivious to the motionless machines. With intimating echoing clacks of combat boots the large mass of muscle and dead eyes paced across the cavern toward the trophy area.

The figure traveled under the large vaulted imperial banner of the traitorous neo Maharaja and ally to the machines, Mowgli Rao. Who had once flown it tauntingly over the monsoon swept battlements at Agra Fort. The muscular mass passed a cubed display of an old decommissioned fifty caliber sniper rifle. Folded neatly underneath it was the Presidio Alto, digital camouflage, fatigue shirt of a TAC with the name "Baum" stitched to the chest. Leaning against the single tier rifle rack was an ancient yellow phone book open to the B's section of phone numbers and addresses. The muscular figure found who he was looking for behind a suit of Samurai armor that was black as sin, and sitting on a stool. There was a strange curving rune on the chest piece inlaid in gold. But had no plaques or words, it was simply a mysterious piece of armor, hundreds of years old. It side stepped the display and stood in the blind spot. The blue florescent light gave its eyes a cybernetic red tint.

The man with the grown out mane of raven curls, dark blue Henley shirt, old jeans, and grimy brown motorcycle boots didn't seem to see the machine. His emerald eyes were lost, his figure slouched and supported by a silver and polished ash sword cane. The T-800 turned his attention to the sight that the scarred, brooding face of the handsome man looked on.

In the glass case was a beautiful gown of silken ivory and Spanish lace. In a destroyed world, in loss of a civilized governance of law and order, it was a true relic of an age long ago. When there were still magical weddings that were now only relayed to dirty children by their parents remembering days before they were all huddled in a sewer tunnel. Like his motorcycle, it had taken the young man two years to salvage the materials for the dress. It took two weeks for a cyborg, newly christened with the name Cameron, to elegantly sew it together from the sketches that a young and beautiful girl, lost in time, had drawn up. And it had taken a sadistic and obsessed mad man a whole night to ruin it with vengeful glee.

**The Robbed that smiles steals from the **_**THIEF**_**. **

The famed words of William Shakespeare were finger painted in blood over the torn and stained downy bodice and silk skirts. At the groin area of the gown, pinned next to the enlarged word thief, was a note that simply read _"I want __**HER**__ back, Messiah._" It was written in bold lettering with the same bloody ink as the defaced wedding gown.

The challenge all those years ago did not go unanswered by the young man whose bride was stolen from him in retaliation for the assumed action taken against the defacer. But in the face of the oblivion of nonexistence if complying with the mad man's demands to return the cyborg girl he viewed as his property, Ryan Connor had disobeyed his father's orders and confronted the leader of the Grays directly in attempt to rescue the girl he loved. The result of all that had happened on the rusted and decrepit aircraft carrier was why the gown till this day remained in this very room on display.

It was a reminder of the greatest failure of a young man who cursed the impossible love of a teenager and a cyborg that was his genesis.

"What is it, Guardian …?"

Ryan's voice was pained and distant, his scarred face reflected in the glass, watching the large T-800 from behind him. The machine didn't blink, didn't flinch at the hard voice that addressed it. Stepping into the florescent flood light, the large, muscular machine was white haired and wrinkled. He wore a shined skin tight shirt of the darkest grey and black jeans. There was nothing in the cyborg's brown eyes as he strode next to the crippled figure.

"I've retrieved LAPD case file 0#1980256. It is the Charlie Dixon suicide case from your father's archives." When the machine spoke it was with a thick, unemotive, Austrian accent. With a large, bicep riddled arm, he held the dusty manila folder out to the crippled man.

Emerald eyes fell to a frown. "Put it on the desk." He ordered with a motion of his head. The cyborg nodded and retracted the police file and dossier of a long dead Los Angeles County paramedic. But he did not move from his spot, the machine continued to stare, not at the man, but the wedding gown.

"What?" The man growled.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" The cyborg spoke in a formal request of a soldier asking a superior officer.

Ryan gave a long pause. "Granted." He seemed distracted as he sighed.

"The Lady Jocelyn has been dead these last seventeen years, come Christmas. I don't understand the need to have this memorial any longer. In my estimation this constant exposure to the past duel on the aircraft carrier between yourself and _Professor Von Rothbart_ is clouding your reason, and the residual emotions rendering you inefficient in analyzing the data needed to solve the present case."

The man seemed as cold as the machine who spoke to him without pity or remorse for all that came attached to the ruined wedding gown, and missing bride. He twitched in pain and grunted as his cane clicked on the floor in readjustment.

Ryan's response was through gritted teeth. "If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that …" He paused a moment in serious thought. "Not a damn thing would change around here." There was levity in his sorrowful gaze that fell to his feet.

"Sir?"

"Human's … illogical, inefficient, get used to it." He replied sternly, glancing with side-eye authority to the inquisitive T-800.

There was a wave of stoic puzzlement in the old cyborg. It was confused to the logic of the illogical that his master imparted on him, and unsure as to the why his advice had received irrelevance from the detective. He watched with muted fascination as the man steeled himself with one last look at the ruined wedding gown. His free hand reaching out and touching the cold glass. He bowed his head as if to pray, but stopped himself.

Ryan Connor didn't do that anymore.

Being the son of a Messiah himself, he carried the burden of a preacher's kid with him at all times. Praying for the favor of a god, taking comfort in the divinity and omnipresence of a savior never set right with the man anymore. Somehow knowing the real history and personality of a man, of a name, which people had turned into a deity of mythological legend and deeds with ease had stripped Ryan of his faith in a higher power. Now when he bowed his head, it was a moment of surrender. It was a second of allowing all the weight of his sorrow and mistakes to catch up to him and all the blissful memories to fall away in regret.

Then, with a long sigh, he turned in pain both of the body and soul and motioned Guardian to lead on. The two slowly began walking out of the trophy area of the bunker.

"Give me a rundown on our person of interest." Ryan ordered as he limped through the forest of weapons lockers and menacing rictus grins of lipless metal skeletons.

"Charles Andrew Dixon, Born 6th of February, 1963, Staten Island, New York City. He had three appearances in juvenile court from 1976 to 1980 for burglary, trespassing on private property, and vandalism. Did a court mandated year in juvenile detention in 1981 for shoplifting. He eventually graduated from Saint Peter's Catholic High School in 1982. In 1986 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corp. and entered Field Medical School. He spent three years on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise before reenlisting in December 1990 in time for "Operation: Desert Shield" and served with the 1st Marine Division during "Operation: Desert Storm" in 1991. He was discharged with honors in 1993 with distinction for his medical service during the "Battle of Khafji" in Kuwait. He joined the FDNY in 1994 and spent two years at EMS station 22 in Staten Island. In 1996 he moved to Fork's County Nebraska when in 1998 he met and instantly fell in love with Sarah Connor …"

"That's all."

It was hard to tell who hated Sarah Jeanette Connor more. The computer system that had tasted death once before, and in fear of the Plutonian hand reaching once more for its silicone soul and hatred for one man, created the impossible for no other reason but to kill one seventeen year old spoiled debutant. But that madness didn't hold a candle to a frightened boy of eight, sitting by his father's sick bed, afraid of losing the only family he had left and being alone in the world. That night, sleeping on the hard adobe ground next to his deathly ill father's cot, Ryan Connor swore to hate the woman forever. To loath the even mention of the beautiful protector who had abandoned them years before and now when they needed her the most she was nowhere to be found.

John Connor had spent many years throughout the decades looking for his beloved mother and never finding a trace of her. Ryan had nearly died twice himself searching for the woman on his own. As the long decay of years past since the war ended, Ryan had often thought of what he would do if he ever found Sarah Connor. He wasn't sure if he'd beat her to death or tie her down and relay to her every memory of his father's suffered silence of the loss of his wife. Tell her of the slow pain and sorrow eating the man from the inside with no one to help him. Tell her about the endless pain, the sickness of a broken heart that a mother could've healed in time. But a responsibility she punted to a small boy. Thus rather than being healed, that pain and anger defined that boy for the rest of his life till he was nothing more than a crippled hero of yesterday, who needed a cane to help him walk. Ryan Connor would never forgive Sarah Connor for abandoning his dad, mom, and himself when he was just a toddler. And he'd never forget what came after she left. He'd hear nothing nor look for anything concerning Sarah, and if he ever saw her …

He'd put a bullet in her head.

By the time Guardian was done explaining the cliff-notes version of Charlie Dixon's life, they had reached an old heavy desk of dark wood. On each side were black shelves stuffed with cubbies of rolled maps. Each compartment was labeled alphabetically by country, and consisted of a map that plotted roads, a topographical guide, and dozens of more localized guides of towns, cities, and smaller provinces. To the right were simply maps of the United States, fifty compartments for each state in the union containing detailed layouts of each county and major city in the country. The desk itself was lit by a green and gold reading lamp taken from the ruins of the Los Angeles Public Library. On top the surface were scattered papers of open police and federal case files that looked ancient, though all were dated years after 2009. On top of the files were forensic journals dated to 2014 and a scratch sheet of paper with formula markings that were helped by the measurements of a metal geometry ruler to crime scene photos. The desk was pushed up against a large bulletin board that was hammered in place against the brick layering of the old Spanish mansion's foundations.

"_**LONE SURVIVOR OF WEST HOLLYWOOD MASSACRE DIES." **_

"_**HERO EMT FOUND DEAD IN FORMER HOUSE; HANGS SELF." **_

"_**Chella Gomez Ramiro, Janitor, 1962 – 2009." **_

"_**TECH WORLD MOURNS LOSS OF ZEIRA CORP. RESIDENT GENIUS; POISONED."**_

"_**Thomas Edward Raft, Security Officer, 1975 – 2010." **_

"_**FEDERAL FUGITIVE KILLED IN TRUCK EXPLOSION ON ROUTE 66."**_

"_**Albert Nguyen, Security Officer, 1981 – 2013."**_

"_**FEDS QUESTION ZEIRA CORP. CEO CATHERINE WEAVER AFTER STRING OF LOW LEVEL EMPLOYEE DISAPPEARANCES." **_

"_**ZEIRA CORP. CEO APPREHENDED IN CONNECTION TO FIVE YEARS OF MURDERED EMPLOYEES." **_

"_**MOST DANGEROUS GAME?" **_

"_**THE WORKER TOMBS OF THE GREAT PYRAMIDS; THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA … ZEIRA CORP.?"**_

"_**THE HOUSE WEAVER BUILT; WITH MURDER."**_

"_**WEAVER ESCAPES CUSTODY." **_

"_**TECH HEIRESS BRUTALLY MURDERED IN OWN HOME WITH NANNY; MOTHER STILL AT LARGE."**_

"_**Former Campo De Cahuenga Beauty, Killed in Home Fire." **_

Descending from the board was tacked up newspaper, Magazine, and online articles that were connected together in a labyrinth of red and blue string tied around each pinned tack. The main path of events starting with the death of James Ellison, to the fiery explosion that claimed Derek Reese's life, and ending with the night that Savannah Weaver was heinously slain and Cameron Connor dispatched in her own living room. It was all connected by a single red string, like the lain track to a runaway train whose final stop was Judgment Day. The little, mostly unknown obituaries, were placed off to the side of the board and were connected to the major events with blue strings where they tied in. It was a thick and tangled web that had taken Ryan most of his life to complete.

It was a visual map to the end of the world.

When they had reached the desk the T-800 looked down at the wounded leg of his master as he waited. Sensing the quiet look, the hobbled man rolled his eyes.

"Are we moving to slow for you, Pops?" He addressed the machine with annoyed sarcasm by the derogatorily affectionate name he had given the aging cyborg.

"You don't have _the_ _leg brace_ on, sir?" It asked with clinical interest at best.

"No, I had to take it off." He replied shortly. "The air in 2009 has too much oxygen, the ligaments and servos aren't adjusting to the chemicals in the air content. The mechanical parts are corroding too fast out there. I'm gonna have to raid the tool shed back at the house for any of mom's spare leg parts next time I go through the _displacement field_." With a grunt, Ryan hobbled to the rolling office chair, the back draped with his inherited double breasted leather coat. He gave a sigh of relief and let his throbbing leg settle.

"We have more than enough parts here, sir." The machine watched the crippled man lounge back in the soft pleather chair that was as old as he was.

Ryan was observing his board of red and blue, following the line that ended with the final headline he'd never be able to numb himself too. "Sure, just not any that has been adapted to the air in the past. It's just one more reason to be thankful for that fucking moron of a head cheerleader who peaked in high school and burned the entirety of the spare parts that mom had collected." The bitter hatred for Sarah Connor was palpable in his sharp sarcastic voice.

The Cyborg tilted his head. "That wouldn't be the same head cheerleader who peaked in high school whose coat and scarf you never leave anywhere without wearing, would it?" He asked.

Ryan turned his head languidly toward the machine. His emerald eyes looked like two knifes being held against the 101's thick neck. .His expression angrily contorted in facetiousness.

"How many years have we known each other, Pops?"

"Twenty inspiring years."

"In all those twenty inspiring years we've know each other you have never been this interesting of a conversation."

"Thank you, sir."

"Please shut up."

Slowly the man's eyes moved from the conversation and rose to the unaffiliated LA Examiner headliner. It told that a valued member of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Service had killed himself. It was the only blurb and headline that didn't have a string on it. During their long nights discussing his mother's murderer, Ryan's father didn't believe that Charlie Dixon's death had anything to do with the murder of his wife or most of the people that the Connor family considered ally to the cause. John had painted the picture of a lonely, depressed man, filled with anger and guilt over the murder of his wife at Cromartie's hands. His father was convinced Dixon was nothing but a case of a man who couldn't keep it together after the truth of Sarah and John's lives came out. Afterward he had driven his mother out to Charlie Dixon's grave one evening, sometime after the memorial services. Sarah Connor had laid flowers, and afterward he didn't quite say what happened between John and Sarah, but whatever it was, the man was convinced that Dixon wasn't important. His son however wasn't convinced, as evidence to the headline being on the board. But now with an EMS syringe at Ellison's Crime Scene, he knew that his father had been too close.

Ryan Connor didn't believe in coincidences.

He took the file from the out stretched hand of the weathered and muscular cyborg. Opening the dusty folder, the detective began sorting through the contents. It was filled with Dixon's personal file from the LAC EMS, military records from the Marine Corp, and background information on his juvie record. Inside were seven or eight crime scene photos, corner's report, and the noose the man had used to kill himself.

Reaching behind, he searched through his coat's pocket and drew out his magnifying glass. Quietly he observed the high quality photos of the paramedic's corpse. Seeing anyone hung was a brutal affair, the gaunt man's sallow eyes were greyed and sucked back into his skull. His skin had turned a deathly shade of pale, the tips of his appendages blackened and blue in the start of decay. But most horrific was the gruesome unnatural elongation of the man's neck. Ryan began to understand why his father collected the file, but did not see inside it. No one wanted to see someone they knew like the way they had found Charlie Dixon. There was a chair tipped over on its side near his dangling feet, the side effect of the last gasps of life in the kicks of every hanged man's death throws. But shuffling, he found that nothing else stood out as important in the remaining photos of distinguishing markings. All that was left was just a birthmark on his thigh and a tattoo of a bull skull on his right arm.

He picked up the Hangman's noose and observed it with his hands, pulling it taught in his strong grip. It was a rough and stiff material used by fishermen. It all made clean sense, Dixon was a fisherman when he began squatting at the Lighthouse. He would use fisherman's rope, the only material available to him.

"Did you read the Corner Report, Pops?" He asked the large looming figure behind him.

"Yes, the LA County coroner ruled that the cause of death was suicide by means of hanging."

The man was looking over the fisherman's rope with his magnifying glass when paused in investigating. "Obviously …" He sniped sarcastically before going back to studying the knot. "What else did it say?" he asked turning the rope from one side to the other.

"He had large amounts of Chlorophenyl and Clohexanone in his system upon the time of his death." The machine reported while watching the man stare at the rope deep in thought.

"What did you say?" He looked back at the cyborg alertly in delayed reaction.

"He had large amounts of Chlorophenyl and Clohexanone in his system upon the time of his death." The T-800 repeated in same cadence and voice, as if he hit rewind and play back on a recording.

Ryan looked down at the knot. "That's Ketamine …" He glared in thought, tugging on his stubbled chin. "Why would he give himself a sedative, if he was going to hang himself?" He asked leaning back into his chair.

"Perhaps to lessen the pain?" Pop's postulated.

The scarred man shook his head. "No …" He explained. "Even if I were to take the largest oxycodone in the world … I would still panic if my airway was restricted." He pieced out thoughtfully.

"But he didn't panic. He broke his neck."

Immediately, Connor shuffled through the photos and picked up his magnifying glass. The machine behind him took a step closer as the man hunched over the desk and studied the initial photograph of the awkward twisting corpse. He focused on the chair that was fallen on its side.

"Strike two …" He muttered to himself thoughtfully.

"There was a strike one, sir?"

The comment was ignored as he placed down his glass and looked through the file. There he found a folded piece of paper that had been stained yellow in age. "What's this?" He asked the cyborg after a moment.

"A suicide note."

"A note …?" He seemed confused in a mutter as he started reading the short scribbled words. He looked over it once and then twice, before he leaned back and gazed to the board.

"And that's strike three."

The Cyborg tilted its head, but did not speak. Before he could even ask the question, Ryan wheeled his chair back and stood without his cane. Pops watched the detective start to untie the red thread from the main path. He only stopped to hand the T-800 the letter.

"Read that." He ordered.

"_I cannot handle what is to come and suffering in my shock was my wife that I just couldn't find the defence for. I failed the woman I vowed to love and protect till death do us part." _

When the Austrian accent fell silent the cyborg didn't seem to understand why it was asked to read the written words of a dead man. For a long moment the machine was quiet, watching its master string the new path that now connected James Ellison's death to Charlie Dixon's.

"That numb skull bastard! He was neck deep in this the entire time." Ryan grunted in pain reaching for his cane.

The cyborg wasn't quite sure what his master had found. But whatever it was, it was enough to sway him into chasing a lead. He trailed the hobbled man, whose cane made loud echoing clacks on the marble floors toward the staircase and platform above that were made of metal grating. The process was slow going, but in the end Ryan had gotten up the stairs without help.

On top of the platform was a vast computer station. The five sleek 8k plasma screens were encased in a layer of protective plexiglass. The streamline controls of flashing and streaming data on touch screen panels were controlled by a master keyboard whose letters had worn off in the long years. Those who wished to use the control panel were those who had muscle memory of using the keyboard long before obscurity and had knowledge of the gigantic and sophisticated computer system that John Connor had built and coded from scratch. Next to the super computer, pushed up against the metal guard railing, was a spectrograph machine that still had a LA County EMS syringe within the plastic scanning compartment. There was also a DNA sequencing machine, a blood analyzer, and evidence drying cabinet. All of the state of the art equipment was created and taken from Zeira Corp. in the year before the war.

The large leather command chair that sat in front of the futuristic and holographic computer terminal was almost throne like when the athletically built man swiveled it. There was no doubt when the crippled hero sat in the seat comfortably, that the chair had been built for a much taller and broader specimen. Sitting in John Connor's command chair made Ryan feel like a small boy walking in the boots of an Adonis. When the system came alive the futuristic holographic screen in the right corner immediately alerted the raven haired man to the old information from the spectrum analysis of the paramedic's syringe.

_Cl: 55%_

_Na: 30.6%_

_S04: 7.7%_

_Mg: 3.7%_

_Ca: 1.17%_

_K: 1.13%_

The numbers streamed in the information band between screen and key board over and over again. The T-800 studied the chemical makeup of whatever Ryan had been analyzing off the syringe. There was quick tacking of a keyboard as the shadowed man began looking through the database for something in particular, going back to the days when a teenage boy had kept all files on memory cards that were connected to a lap top. Emerald eyes flittered through the schematics for an AI design engineered by an autistic computer genius named Xander Akagi. The next stream was a video in first person prospective. There was a fairly attractive woman, naked and lathering her slick freckled body in a shower. The hand opened the sliding glass door and the red haired woman smiled.

"_Do you know that in thirty-six hours we'll be waking up in Tahiti? I can't believe you bought us tickets …" _

With two taps the video feed disappeared. The man gave a grunt of annoyance and muttered under his breath about the older files in John Connor's database not being labeled. He tacked through pages and pages worth of Xeroxed documents of a city project code named A-R-T-I-E. By the time he had gone through video bytes upon video bytes worth of the denizens of "Charm Acres" living their lives under Kaliba's watchful eye, Ryan had more than enough trying to find his way through a Sixteen year olds unorganized brain.

"He can organize a global resistance, and reorganize armies down to the platoon … but he can't name his files? Jesus H. Christ … Oracle!" There was an automated beep that answered his frustrated call. "Clean this shit up, and when you find it, punch up the security codes for a safe house. Codename: Guiding Light. Upload the information to the "_Cortana_" band." There was another positive bleep. Suddenly files opened on the main screen and closed after scanning the content inside.

Leaving the AI to its work, the man retrieved his cane and began walking down the stairs, all but ignoring Guardian. It was clear, after twenty years of watching the boy become a man, that Ryan was about to go back into the past. He followed the crippled hero back to the desk where he collected his magnifying glass and ripped his old coat off the back of the rolling chair. Without a word, as was the man's own brooding idiom, the status quo of the entire case had changed. But as for the T-800, it was still unsure how.

"The first thing that tipped me off was the syringe." Ryan started mid thought, no lead in. The machine accompanied him to John and Cameron Connor's Mustang relic that still had the doors open.

"Was it because of the EMS label on it?"

"Partially, but it wasn't till I ran a Spetro-analysis that I realized something was off …"

He began rooting around in the foot well. There he began pulling out a familiar dark blue scarf with cut eye slits, which still had a fruity, feminine musk to it. Next, it was a brown utility belt made of old worn leather, with a scarred silver buckle. Finally, he took in hand a chrome ligature cast. On both sides of the cybernetic device was two halves of a Terminator's mechanical leg that ran from thigh to just below the knee. The hinges that connected this streamlined skeletal leg brace was built from the servos and pistons of a killing machine's joints. As he explained he began placing each item on top of the Mustang's riddled hood.

"I had it scan the inside and found a deluded form of _**glucocorticoids**_. It's an adrenaline steroid they used to use in the old days for people going into allergic shock. "The Woman" had been giving it to Ellison for months without the antibiotic. It's why they were having so much sex … the injections were getting his blood up. But it was when I checked the outside of the syringe that I got my first clue."

The machine watched him limp over to the trunk of the Mustang and open it. "55% Chlorine, 30.6% Sodium, 7.7% Sulfate, 3.7% Magnesium, 1.17% Calcium, and 1.13% Potassium." The Austrian accented cyborg began listing off the percentages of the chemical makeup of the residue that the Spectrograph found on the syringe.

Nodding, Ryan removed Derek Baum's old tool box from the trunk. He hobbled back to the hood of the car and set it down. "Go get me a servo from the 700's leg." He motioned to a glass case display where a soot and carbon stained metal skeleton stood at attention. Out of all the endo-bodies that lined the trophy room, the 700 was the most human looking of all.

As the T-101 complied, pacing to the display and opening the case with a hiss of repressed air, Ryan leaned on the car hood. "Seawater." He replied absently, lost in thought and calculations. "The syringe had seawater stains on the plastic." He explained. "LA County paramedic, seawater … lighthouse was the next logical step." He nodded to himself. "Dixon probably kept medical supplies he ripped off from the fire station in a fisherman's shed somewhere out there. High tide, or possibly he accidently dropped it in the ocean and you got your stain." He began opening the tool box. The greying cyborg arrived with a servo, placing it next to him on the hood.

"And that was all you needed to condemn Charles Dixon as a co-conspirator to James Ellison's murder?" It watched as the crippled man began unscrewing one of the joints free from the leg brace.

Ryan began pulling on the stuck joint. "No …" He strained. "Three strikes on the file." He huffed. When being taught the basics of deduction by his mother, the first lesson that Cameron had taught her child was that there had to be at least three flaws in a theory before it could be taken as incorrect. It was a lesson that Ryan hadn't forgot from his time sitting on her lap, being taught things that his father was kept in the dark about.

As he worked, rust and pieces of the former joint began to chip away and collect in powdered piles on the hood. The man blew it away as he continued to strain. "Strike one was the noose." He panted.

"The Noose?"

He nodded. "It was tied with an Army knot." Ryan finally pulled the corroded green, orange, and mustard yellow mechanical joint free with a pair of Derek's old pliers. What had been a polished and well-oiled chrome part, now nearly fell apart in rusted ruin after long exposure to an atmosphere from the past with different chemicals within the air. "Dixon was a Marine, even if he was going to commit suicide; he'd never stoop to associate his death with anything that had to do with the Army." He dropped the decayed cybernetic ligament on the hood where it broke in half on contact.

"Strike two?" The muscular T-800 handed him the new part.

The man blew the rust out of the leg brace's socket before using the pliers to insert the new joint. "The chair in the photo." His voice was steady as he worked. "It was knocked down on its side." He explained with a grunt. "Say for the sake of argument, that Dixon killed himself … he ties the knot, throws it over the plant hook, steps on the chair, fits the noose, finally steps off the chair, and his neck breaks." He offered while screwing in the servo. "What's his momentum?" He asked.

While Ryan began oiling the sockets, the T-800 spaced out as his red and gold world was filled with sudden calculation of polywire model displays and geometric charts. "Back and forth." He answered as assuredly as if asked about his own location at the moment.

"Back and forth." He confirmed. "If the chair was going to be knocked over it would be back first, not on its side. Which means that there was a struggle to get and keep him on the chair." The man gave his invention three hard palm strikes to secure the servo in place.

Pops took the leg brace and watched the man roll up his blue jean pant leg. There on the tanned leg of an Olympic caliber athlete was a horrifically gruesome scar. Long ago, in the subterranean dungeons of a gothic castle, a rapier's thrust, wielded by an obsessed mad man, had found a teenage hero's leg in a desperate eleventh hour duel for a cyborg girl. Its blade had carved through cartilage, bone, and muscle. Leaving a deeply embedded red scar that ran from thigh to knee, like a topographical map of a major river valley. Cleaved bone, hewn tendon, and missing cartilage in his knee had made the leg practically useless, barely able to hold the man's own weight. Leaving the once daring, acrobatic, swashbuckler robbed of his athletic prowess and crippled for life.

"Strike Three was the note." The T-800 confirmed.

The former soldier reached his hand out for the brace. As he took it, he spoke. "Let me put you in a state of mind. You're a kid from Staten Island, spent your informative years with the wrong kind of guys. It took you five years to get a diploma. One of those years you spent in a juvenile detention center." He painted the picture as he strapped the device to his leg. "Six years in the Marine Corp., two years with FDNY, and the rest spent in Forks County "Hick Town"." He explained. He looked up at the machine.

"Now spell the word "defense"."

The T-800 blinked stoically. "D-e-f-e-n-s-e" He complied without hesitation.

"But that's not how he spelled it in the suicide note … is it?"

"D-e-f-e-n-_**c**_-e"

"It's the British spelling." He shook his head. "Why would Charlie Dixon, a hard head from Staten Island, who spent six years with the Marines, write his final words with a British spelling?" he asked rhetorically.

"Because, he did not write the note."

"Because, he didn't write that note." Ryan grabbed the leather utility belt. "The murderer wrote it. A woman educated in Europe, whose had military training, and has an in with all of our victims. And Dixon has been supplying her with steroids for months." His voice took a darker tone at the one realization that had eluded him in his rush to convict Dixon of a crime. The murderer he was talking about in a detached manner, that he was hunting, was the same that had killed his own mother, the source of his pain since he could remember.

"He's in on whatever is going on."

"Perhaps he was used?"

"It fits her pattern, seducing ancillary figures like janitors and security guards to hit bigger targets, and then razing the loose ends. She used Charlie Boy to kill Ellison for the Zeira Corp. employee list and schedule, and then cut his strings like a marinate. But whether that ignorant fuck is dumb enough not to know what was going on or he was roped in on the promise of some revenge fantasy against the shit for brain head cheerleader for his wife's death … one thing is for sure." Ryan folded the belt. "He knows who his killer is going to be." He bit the leather hard. Reaching a hand down, he twisted a tabbed knob on the side of the knee plate. When the knob was lined up against the impression socket, he pushed it in.

Suddenly the leg brace compressed inward, crushing the man's wounded tendons, joints, and bone back together in their proper place. Amongst the crackling and popping of bones and joints, Ryan let out a mighty roar of intense pain, his fist punching the Mustang's hood. The cybernetic brace set his leg in a shielded mechanical cast made of Terminator parts. When a blue light blinked three times on the knee joints, staying in glow for a few seconds before fading away, Ryan began walking under his own power. Sweat beaded his brow and his emerald eyes were glazed with rage as pain throbbed and irritated his nerves, giving him a rush of aggressive adrenaline that coursed through his veins.

Throughout the painful process and gruesome noises that echoed through the trophy room, the cavern bunker and building's custodian and guardian showed no sign of empathy or concern for the man with raven curls. He simply continued the conversation as if he was paused like a streaming movie and continued when the distracting task was done.

"Charlie Dixon has lied before to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to protect Sarah Connor and your father in the past. Do you believe that even if you were to confront Charlie Dixon in 2009 about his recent activities that he will give up this woman he is helping?" He watched his panting master pace, testing the braces sturdiness.

The man didn't respond at first, walking down to the open case where the T-700 sat unmoving. Then, driven by the pain, anger, sorrow, and most of all the memories, he pivoted back and sent a trained kick into the metal skeleton's breastplate. There was an explosive noise of bending metal that echoed like the thunder of a gunshot throughout the cavern. Pops observed the dent placed right over the machine's rotary power source, and the new stress fractures that appeared from the original damage. All made from just one rage filled kick by a cybernetically patched leg.

"I think he will."

* * *

**Acknowledgements**

"_The Unquiet Grave" – Stephaniesings_

* * *

**Author's Notes **

_If you're going "Master's Wheel, wait is that …?" Yeah, it is. And there's a little Batman Beyond in there, as well as "The Dark Knight Rises" for good measure and I been binge watching "Merlin" lately and Katie Mcgrath is the perfect woman so I decided to throw a Morgana tribute in the mix as well … because I'm a twenty-five year old man and I write what I want within cannon reason to the universe._

_There was actually a flashback/forward that was going to open this chapter. It was a big throw back to Pulp stories and movie serials from the '30s and '40s that was going to take place in New Orleans and was going to introduce Lady Jocelyn and a couple of familiar villains from past stories. But it snowballed into over 5k words and basically all it got was a reference in the chapter. Now I'm not sure what to do with it. But it was a lot of fun to write either way_

_I'd love to hear you guys review, and most importantly your theories on who the killer is. You know … if you want too. I've never begged for reviews, but I thought it might be fun if you're a long time reader out there to review in with a fun theory._

_Not begging, not even asking, just kinda putting it out there for some dialogue between writer and anonymous readers out there with a theory or two. Note the word "Fun" please people. _

_Anyway things are now ramped up and will get interesting from here. Paths will start to cross and the picture gets a little clearer._


	7. Chapter Four: Turn of a Friendly Card

**Chapter Four**

_The Turn of a Friendly Card_

It's the shadows in the night that hazel eyes of a greener tint watch. Sleepless, shifting, and disguised in the shapeless interpretation of the state of mind, they move in mysterious shrouds of darkness that can only be found in light. It was a contradiction of hope in the same philosophy that was taught. Light cannot exist without dark, and dark cannot exist without light. Fears came burrowed in the hopes and dreams and yet cannot exist without there being something to look forward too. These were not the musing of the man, but were always within him, as all humans. It is the will to do good and the shadows that exist within a soul that taint these intentions. Some men revel in the darkness, and are changed by it. Some men know the paths to the shadows at the edges and how to stay in the light. But there are a very few that understand the duality of these things and find somewhere between the right and wrong. The heroism and despicable that comes with the greater good and sacrifice for what is right … or to protect the ones they love.

These were the things that were on Derek Reese's mind tonight as he sat in the cushioned arm chair. He watched the shadows on the queen sized bed in front of him. The moonlight was bright as a lantern tonight and its beams broke through blinds and curtain, creating strange patterns from the forested obscurity that it cut through. Somewhere a clock was ticking, echoing comfort to a tired mind that watched the strange shapes of the night on the peaceful sleeping face of Sarah Connor.

It didn't happen often, but every once in a while, a blue moon, such as tonight, she asked him to do this. It wasn't a straight forward question. In fact it was a very vague, but very dire need for company. It was a late night meeting that was pitched as a conversation about something important. But once inside there was rarely anything said. The raven haired woman would slip under the covers. And he'd watch her turn on her side. Sitting in her chair, he'd wait for her to say something. But the conversation promised never came. She'd snuggle her pillow and stare out her window, sometimes stare back at him and not say a word. She didn't offer him an explanation of why he was there. But somewhere inside her, she was lonely and afraid. Somewhere inside her she needed to talk, needed a friend, and needed someone she could pretend loved her. But she was too afraid to open up, too strong to let anyone know she was weak some nights. So she slept somewhere in the middle.

Derek spent those nights motionless, blinkless, and always vigilant. Her emerald eyes watched him in the dark, wondering when he'd get up and leave, maybe even counting on it. After a lifetime of betrayals of her love and disappointment in the people she did, perhaps these were always tests to see when he'd leave her, like everyone else. There was a part of him that wanted to stick it to her, to rub it in her face that she'd never be able to get rid of him. But for the most part it just wasn't in Derek Reese to ever leave family like that, to leave her in doubt. It was ingrained in his DNA, in his very soul to ever be the hawk in the nest protecting the eggs. Years in hell had made him the protective and dangerous man he was today. So it was in the nights when Sarah asked him to come to her room and shut the door, he did so without hesitation. For long hours he'd sit up with her through the night when she needed him. In the morning when she awoke to find him still there, she seemed surprised only once more. She always looked at him as if she wanted to say something, but she was too strong for that, too scared of the feelings of comfort that it gave her. So she slipped from her sheets and walked into her bathroom, expecting him to be gone by the time she came out of her shower to dress. In the evening she'd set a cup of coffee in front of him and ask what he wanted for dinner. And that would be that.

Maybe that was the way of their relationship, a perpetual test of loyalty for a woman too afraid to say she needed him. But Derek Reese didn't come into this world expecting people, especially the women in his life, to tell him what his role was. He assumed it and waited for them to notice, and if they didn't, there is always a job to do anyway. Unambitious and in love with the simplest pleasures in life, a hot dog in the park, a jog through a nature trail of green trees and colorful flowers, Derek was a worker ant, content with his job. That job being the most fundamental for any man that was worth all he stood for.

To protect his family.

He had tried to be John Connor, tried to play the game the way the machine and the messiah did. He had done some things that kept him up at night and changed the future at the point of the gun. All to do his job the way he thought it should be done, the way he had always done it. But in the end, he realized that he wasn't John Connor, and he wasn't a machine. Each day living with John and Sarah, waking up and talking with the kid with his brother's smile, the more he realized that he wasn't a grand architect or an engineer that could manipulate time and space. It took a hero to see things the way that John saw the world. It was an unbiased and an unselfish prism of foresight that put others before himself. In the end Derek was just a selfish bastard trying to erase his own pain from existence. He was a cheater trying to count cards in destiny's casino, and sooner or later will get caught by security.

He had been out of the business of trying to change time. He couldn't understand the rules and wasn't sure of the consequences. When he looked back at all he had done to change his fortunes, Derek was sure of only one thing … that it was a mistake. But that kind of clarity doesn't happen till the prospective changed, till he found out what it meant to know the secrets of how the world of tomorrow was formed.

It was all a strange clearness that formed the night he found out that Sarah was dying.

For a long time since then he had reflected on all the things that he had done. How he had tried to change his fortunes in this world. Then he thought of John and all the times that the man in the future could've done something to change Sarah's fate, to send some man or machine with a cure, and save his mother. But he hadn't, because the world was more important than solving his own pain. Somehow it didn't shock Derek Reese at thirty-three years old that John Connor was still teaching him how to be a man.

It took that kind of example to shed light on what Derek's job was again, what his role in this family, in this life was. He protected John's blind spot, he protected his family. And not in the way he had been before, based on his own feelings, his own state of mind. He did it because they needed him, his nephew, the closest thing he'd have to his own child needed him to do this, to save his mother. It was what Derek told himself, convinced himself, that John needed him to do this. If he explored all the other avenues, he'd find himself back where he started, when he put two in Andy Goode's head. Any other reason for why he had to save Sarah Connor that came to mind wouldn't make him a hero, wouldn't make him the man that John needed him to be. It would make him selfish. Any other reason that came from his heart would be his own shame to admit, in betrayal of a woman across town that he had once loved and a brother whose memory he tried to honor.

There was a shame all in itself when he stood from his comfortable seat in the corner of the room. There was a fundamental reversion from the part of him that said that he had to go. A voice telling him, screaming, that there were so many other nights that he could do the things he had too. But he knew that next week, even tomorrow could be too late. What he had to do had to be tonight.

As he paced by the foot of Sarah's bed, he paused and looked upon the woman that slept so peacefully under the covers. He looked and let the shame wash over him, the doubt about whatever reasons were in his heart for what events will transpire because of tonight. Derek gazed upon her pale face and regal features haloed in the streaming moonlight and let it punch him in the gut. He let the view of the beautiful woman with all her flaws remind him of the importance of her life, of her role in the future, and the lack of his. A prospect that made him feel okay with it all with each passing second of watching her steady breath and serene look as she slept.

As he stopped at the door, Derek felt the sharpness in his chest when he thought of the face that Sarah would make in a few hours, when she'd find him gone. Would she smile knowingly, would she simply blink in interest, or would her eyes fall and know that there was no one she could rely upon anymore? His only comfort and hope was that someday she'd know that he might not have been there when she woke up, but that she was never far from his mind tonight.

He was quiet when he exited Sarah's room. The door did not click, the wooden floor did not creak, and the colder air temperature in the hall did not pop the warmed objects in Sarah's room. He slipped out of the bedroom without a noise and returned it the way it was. He took a moment to adjust to the blinding light of the sterile white upstairs corridor. The moon was visible from the glass pane of the balcony doorway at the end of the hall. The beams caught the large oak tree next to the house and cast strange, twisting silhouettes on the walls and doors. Treacherous and lusty crone's fingers scratching the white halls. Next to the crone's fingers were twisted images of frightening creatures whose spooky limbs were completed exclusively in one's own imaginations. There among all the fantastic and long held terrors of the mind stood an actual figure that was worst then all that Derek could imagine.

She was wordless and motionless, standing in the hallway like some ghostly sentry haunting all of the old horrors that only true darkness knew. Blocking all paths of escape, watching with unblinking emotionless eyes as the man startled in her presence. His heart leapt to his throat, a stinging sensation rand down his scalp, and his blood pressure shot so high that he could hear his heart beating like the tremble of some ancient ceremonial drum that shook every inch of his body in its bass. Derek was silent in his fright, only flinching in her presence. But she did not say anything to the man who quietly panted. His body was heaving silently.

What Derek hated about her, what bothered him the most, was how different she was from all the rest of them. They could make them beautiful, engineer the skin and sculpt the body into an image in the database. But this one, this one wasn't just beautiful, wasn't just some random face in a database. She was haunting, she was supernatural in the way she looked and moved. You knew from the moment you met her that she stood apart from all the rest. And worst of all was that she was not made that way, she had become this way. This lovely creature walked through this world, through these halls with the aurora of a haunting specter, a beautiful phantom that existed in two worlds that should not meet. He hated her because all the rest are made up of ones and zeroes, and this girl, this thing, is not. He hated her because she is not of this world. But most of all, Derek Reese hated her because she represents everything that the enemy had strived to do … replace humanity with a better version of themselves.

Her peach skin shimmered and reflected in the strands of moonlight, whiting out her long locks of glimmering ethereal dark hair. At night she wore a flowing linin nightgown that floated around her knees and trailed her every step of bare feet on the wooden floor. The setting only enhanced the fear in Derek's heart of this ghostly, Woman in White, who haunted the witching hours of the quiet and still house on the hill. The only thing that separated her from his often ghostly mental imagery of this storybook, Victorian phantom he associated with her was the glass of water that was in her hand.

Her golden flecked caramel eyes flicked back and forth between Derek and the door. And he knew that somewhere in that mechanical mind she might be putting together the wrong idea. He'd correct her, or Sarah would if she started asking questions, but for tonight he did not have time, or the patients to instruct the girl on all the intricacies of human emotion. But he didn't have too.

Suddenly, she moved toward him. Without a word or request, a fact later that would irritate Derek, he moved out of her way. This supernatural creature, whose ballerina feet were swallowed by complete darkness, seemed to almost float, like the ghost she seemed. They took her passed the soldier and to the far door on the right. Derek followed her in sudden outrage at the arrogance of the action.

There in front of John's door, the specter halted, gripping the knob. She turned her head to the side as she opened the door. He expected her to go inside, but she didn't. She simply stood in the boy's doorway. She then turned her head fully and stared at Derek. Her eyes betrayed nothing, not displeasure at being followed, nor escalating feelings of entitlement to whatever waited for her inside the darkened room. She waited for him to say something and when he didn't she turned toward something behind him.

When Derek turned back he found that she was staring at Sarah's bedroom door. When he returned she was looking right through him. They didn't have to say anything to know what the implications where. A silent question of if he was bringing comfort to Sarah in her moment of need, did he have any right to rob John, to rob her of that same need of one another? On that level Derek knew that he had to concede to her. But it was the way she looked tonight, the Victorian woman in white, here to steal his nephew's future as he slept. It was the old hatreds, the old atrocities, and a basement in a _Professor's_ southern gothic mansion that played Chopin. It had been one thing to council the angel of Sarah's better nature when concerning whatever was going on between John and the machine, but it was another when he had to confront it on his own.

But then he remembered all of his thoughts earlier. John Connor, the man who had put his happiness, his emotional attachments, and his sanity to the side to save humanity. Who when given the very power to change the fabric of their universe, never thought of himself. Derek Reese might never understand it, he might not like it, but he couldn't be the man who took away that one thing from John Connor. Derek had Kyle, had his family when the world and the war got too much. Maybe all John had, and will have, is this ballerina's specter with her white ghostly nightgown that comes to him in the middle of the night to chase away all his doubts and fears when he couldn't protect himself.

Whatever it was in his eyes, it was enough for Cameron to turn away from Derek Reese. She gave one last look to the man after she slipped inside, the silhouette of a resting figure on a too small bed behind her. Wordlessly the cyborg closed the door quietly till it clicked in place. For a long time Derek waited by John's door, till he heard the creak of springs as another body added to the weight, till the sound of readjusting bodies stopped. Then he knew that Juliet was encircled in Romeo's sleepy, waiting arms.

There were many questions that plagued Derek, fears and concerns for the very safety of the one boy, the one person that could not be spared. But for tonight there was only one person he worried about, whose life and death weighed heavily on the future of everything that went on in that room beyond the door he stood outside of.

There was work to be done tonight.

* * *

In the deepest black of the night, in the passing clouds that covered moon and stars in obscurity, the silent and still waves of the sea felt like a long and black chasm. The stillness of the night, the quiet echo of the lapping ocean was torment to a mind far flung in serious thought. On a windless, cloudy evening, there was nothing but darkness and silence that tormented an already tormented mind. Filled with sorrow, doubt, and suspicion there was no quiet chirp of insect, the beep of a security system, or the rattle of an aluminum flag pole to comfort it. There was nothing but the deep melancholy thoughts of a man that had flown too close to the sun and fell away. He had challenged the gods and their wisdom, tried to touch what he was warned not to and his punishment was severe. No matter where he went, what he did, and how he dealt with his grief, he could not escape it. Here in the center of the shaded abyss of nothingness on a cold pacific night, this man still could not find any relief from his thoughts of the life he had before now. In fact, in light of the nothingness and solitude found in the center of the sea, everything he had tried to flee from was relentless and ceaseless. The ocean had provided nothing for his ailments and instead exasperated all that he had brought with him to be healed.

There was nothing that could be said about Charlie Dixon that hadn't been said before. From all the way back to the days of childhood, during those stinking, seagull infested, summers on Staten Island. The first thing that anyone said about Charlie Dixon was that if someone had heard something, seen something, or knew something, Charlie had to know … Charlie Boy had to look. There were many reasons why he had to know things, why he wanted to know the truth. A brother who said that he was the stupid one, a mother who claimed his learning disabilities weren't from her, and a father who left a family of three because he was convinced that the "meat head" wasn't his kid. He'd spend the rest of his life looking and wanting to know. Somewhere deep inside, afraid that he was being kept in the dark, because he was the stupid one. It made him tough fast, made him abrasive toward those who he felt weren't telling him things. Knowledge was power and he wanted to know everything so that he couldn't be surprised, so he couldn't be humiliated.

It's why he loved her, why he dreamed about her long after he shouldn't have. She was just like him. Sarah Connor told him that she was the stupid one in her family. A prom queen, a head cheerleader that had to look, had to know, just like he did. They were two meat heads in a pod, raising a genius. He could've lived like that, been a hell of a life with a hell of a woman. But it was all cut short. One afternoon they were gone and he spent so many years afterward pining for the life he wanted with a family that he could've had. But as the months go by, a year passing, maybe it wasn't the family that he wanted, maybe it was just the answers of the why. Maybe it was the humiliation of the moment that James Ellison strolled into the Fork's Sheriff's Station, threw down that Pescadero file and treated him the way all the kids on Staten Island treated him, the way the parole officer used treat him, like his drill sergeant used to treat him. It was that look of amusement at this "Sad Sack" son of a bitch that was just too dumb to get a clue.

All the years, even after marriage, which he obsessed over her, thought of her and their life. He wanted to say that it was his love for her that kept her alive in his mind, but maybe it was that she had humiliated him, made him feel as stupid as they told him he was. All those years he had wanted to know the truth of why she left him, why she ran out on the life he had wanted since those bloody hospitals in Kuwait.

Charlie Dixon wanted to know. He wanted to know till it was told to him. He wanted to know till he didn't, till he saw what knowing was, and what it cost to all those around him. Twenty dead FBI agents, abandoning a house that was built out of the future dreams of a newly-wed couple, being stalked by machines, and holding the dead corpse of his wife in the every place where they had worked and fell in love together. Knowing had killed his wife, knowing had ruined his life, and knowing was why he sat at the edge of the abyss tonight and found no salvation in it.

But the truth wasn't the pain that he sought to escape, it was the feeling that he had let his wife down. That he had waisted Michelle's life. She was the woman he married, the woman he had vowed to love and protect forever, and yet she had died for a truth that she didn't want to know. Because no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, he needed to be in another woman's life.

The truth that tormented Charlie tonight, at the edge of the world, and at the edge of his sanity was that Sarah Connor was still all he could think about. He had woken from the darkness of hazy dreams in a cold sweat, knowing that it was about her. He spent his day grieving a wife that he might not have ever loved. The prospect of doing that to someone, hurt him, destroyed him deep within. That kind of ugliness, it was an evil that had carved him whole. There was nothing left in Dixon, nothing but sorrow, frustration, and a tormented obsession with a woman. It was a sleepless fascination that turned to malice.

She invaded his dreams, his waking and his absent mind. She wrapped him in her snare so tight that this woman choked the very essence of who he was out of him. In the few moments that he had connected with her in the fires of action and turmoil that was her life, her real life, it was like nothing he had ever felt before. Not even in the deserts of Iraq did he know this kind of fiery baptism of righteousness, of life altering, soul changing involvement in a conflict that had true implications that had an effect on the world's very future. And when the stress and fear had passed, there was something intoxicating about the rush, that realization that in two seconds of conflict, and possible death, was more important than anything that he had ever done before in his life. All it did was make her life, make _her_, more desirable with each passing memory of those few adrenaline pumping minutes of danger. Wife, no wife, it didn't matter, because he'd chase that rush. He'd chase that beautiful arch-angel with her flaming sword, anywhere. He was obsessed with her and her mission, obsessed with the idea of everything she was trying to do.

Now after the death of Michelle and coming to this solitude, he had tried to detox from that addiction of a life of danger and righteousness. To erase his fantasied ideas of a romanticized existence that exploded with the vivid colors of a new painted world seen through new eyes that had added meaning to each day and night. For some time now he had come to realize the truth of that life, the reality of it. There was no turning back. There was no romanticism in this woman's world. The people who lived this life, day to day, where the people just like him, thrust upon. Without warning it starts, and you lose everything that you clung onto in the previous life.

So what else could Charlie Dixon do but regret? Regret for all the things he had to know that Sarah Connor didn't tell him.

The boat's return was loud and clumsy on its way back to shore. Being a city boy all his life, rigging a boat was a working-progress. Even though he had spent so many years on an aircraft carrier, on a ship with a hundred moving parts operated by a thousand different crew members, he had just been content with patching up the Marines that had too good of a time on shore leave. But three library books later, and some friendly advice from a few guys from the hospital and he was doing okay for himself. The nets caught enough fish to make some money at the local market, and the manager even gave him discounts on the essentials. It wasn't a bad life for someone on their own. It wasn't a bad life for someone off the grid.

But there was still one thing that he hadn't gotten used to.

There were killing machines in the world and they wore human skin like a cheap suit. Walking out your door, you now know that it could be anyone, friend, neighbor, the deli man you got your meats from for the last eight years. It could make you crazy, and it wasn't boding too well for Charlie either. He lost ten pounds and his hair was starting to whiten. The life that he had been so desperate to know was now aging him over night. Time spent on the other things in a previous life, paying bills, mowing the lawn, Sunday brunch at the in-laws. It was now filled with escape plans, booby-traps, and updating the security. So much of Charlie Dixon's life now revolved around escape and protecting him and this lighthouse. He might have been hesitant, might have been more self-aware of his survivalist lifestyle if it wasn't for the images of Michelle bleeding out in the back of a service van. He remembered the questions, the shocked looks from friends that had been at their wedding that now all stood around her chilled corpse on a gurney outside a morgue. Whenever he strayed, whenever he thought seriously about what he was doing out there, all he had to do was remember what just one of "Them" had done to four people in a shed in the desert. Then it was all worth the cost.

The withered man tied down the boat good and tight. He knew _the Marine knots_ that they had drilled in his head during basic would pay off some day. He pulled the unbaited fishing rod and the unused tackle box with him as he dismounted the boat. He was hesitant to light his lantern for the dark walk from the pier to the caretaker's house. But when he stepped off the wooden walkway and nearly twisted his ankle in the moist sand, he thought better.

The home was in complete black out as he walked up the steps. He cursed himself once or twice, not remembering if he had forgotten to turn on the security lights or not. It was these little indecisions and misrememberance that could be the meaning of life and death in this new life. But when the motion sensors came on and blipped, he let out a sigh of relief.

However when he stepped inside he was met with pitch darkness within the home. Setting his gear down, he flipped the switch for the kitchen lights to find that they did not come on. He grunted, flicking them on and off with no response as he reset the security code. He gave a long sigh of annoyance. This wasn't the first time nor the last that this had happened. With so much security and other electrical traps set around the property, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the grid and the generators were too ill-equipped to handle the power running through the small seaside home.

"Jasper!" The man called the golden retriever.

Sarah had told him that dogs could smell the machines, and bark to warn of their coming. So he had spent most of the lump sum of his cashed in 401K on a well-trained, well-bred guard dog. The golden furred animal was more than just a tool for security. Charlie had found that even the most mundane thing in the day, like feeding him, the long hours of sitting and petting his golden fur, there was therapy to having the golden retriever around. He wasn't sure what he'd do or where he'd be without that K-9. But he frowned when he heard no rustle of fur, or pad of feet down the hallway.

"Jasper I'm home, boy!" He called taking his lantern as he paced through the kitchen area, looking for the dog. But he found no sign of him. He wasn't sure why, but a chill slowly began trailing down his back. He immediately turned into the monitor room and saw each one of his cameras was still operating. But there was something obscuring on the last monitor on the lower right. A piece of paper stuck to the camera located on the backdoor. He pulled the sticky note and read the red pen on it.

"_Bedroom"_

An old pain suddenly racked the man's body. Mind and soul suddenly were thrown into a chaos of conflicting sensations of regret, guilt, and unadulterated need. There was a Pavlovian response to the request that had him burning in a desire that had been set in low simmer for nine years. But just underneath was the shame of the dark memories that had sent him to this lonesome exile in the first place. Charlie was a man in a conflict with what he wanted, what he needed, and what was right. But all these things were not clear to a man who had been doing everything he could to keep his head above water since the first moment Sarah and John's cyborg had revealed the motionless corpse of the flesh covered killing machine on their own dining room table. But what Dixon did know was that those old romantic notions of what this life could be were taking over him, and his reason was having a hard time fighting those images. All Charlie really wanted was some sort of comfort from this life he had chosen. He needed someone to tell him that it wasn't going to be like this every moment of every day.

Despite his best efforts, he needed _her_. He needed her like a junkie with nothing to lose needed one last fix before letting it all ride.

He crumbled the sticky note in his fist in utter defeat. It was going to happen _again_, and he knew there was no escaping it. There was resignation in his shuffled footsteps through the pitch dark home that was occupied by one more and one less than Charlie realized as walked through the hall. When he reached the bedroom he found the door only half open, not the way he had left it.

"Sarah?" He lifted the lantern above his head and pushed the door open.

Suddenly he was acutely aware of a thick and heavy scent in the room. It smelled coppery and faintly decaying as it hung in the air. His stomach dropped as it engaged his senses and made him queasy in an old familiarity. Twelve years as a Paramedic and a year on the battlefields of Kuwait and Iraq had made Charlie Dixon very familiar with the smell of blood.

"Oh god, Sarah!"

Charlie rushed to his bed, tripping and fumbling his way to its side in a panic. But when he shed his lantern on the floral bed spread, made by Michelle's grandmother, he found no body or sign that anyone had been there. However, he turned to find that there was a sheet of paper pinned to the headboard of the bed by his own gutting and cleaning knife.

The blood was still black and fresh as it slowly dripped down the jagged edges and gut hook, splattering deep stains on the white linin pillow cases. It took Charlie a long moment to process what he had found. The security was still online, the alarm code was set, and flood lights would have come on if all else failed. A sight he could've seen from his fishing spot. His hand was shaking as he pulled the bloody knife from the headboard. He looked at the chunks and golden fur still on the blade and whispered the name of the only living thing in the home when Charlie had left.

When he lifted the lantern for better light, he failed to see the extra shadow that was cast on the wall behind him. A shadow that had been behind him since the moment he had entered the house. In the new light he read what was written in blood.

"_**Behind You"**_

But it was too late …

* * *

Traveling into a forest of concrete, glass, and metal under a dark, blood red, amber sky, you come to realize one thing. There was no such thing as a dark night in the city of angels. Though there was no light from the hazy silver orb and no star to be found above the endless grids of civilization. The only stars in this town where the kind you find on the billboards, and on the maps sold by twelve year old Mexican girls who have uncles and brothers who know a guy. The only light was from the neon signs and zippo lighters in the endless slippery back alleys where foul business bred foul deeds in the cold, trash strewn, palm tree pocked streets with Spanish names.

At night was when the worst of one's self and others come out. Each tormented soul looking to fill that one wonted desire, the illness of self-indulgence, the vice that calls to them when the rest of the normal world sleeps. It's the one thing they can only find here on these dark streets shadowed in the colored neon and the tall empty skyscrapers that stood sentry like opulent towers of some false Camelot. From above it must look like anything was possible, a casual view of a world that looks peaceful from miles above. But from the ground it was a devils playground when the sun went down.

They were darkened faced demons with ill intentions that traveled concrete walkways. Each one of them was suspicious of the other as they pass. Somewhere deep inside they know what they want, what they navigate this dangerous journey for is wrong on some level. But they can't stop themselves. Life makes them this way. The wear and tear of unfulfilled dreams, of joyous plans coming up short, and happiness never found. Now they can only glimpse that little part of their past lives somewhere in that short time that they snort, drink, shoot up or burry inside a hot moist place. For a moment in whatever bliss was their choosing they remember what they were before they got here, before they got to this point, to this low place, to this city. Then when the high is over, they remember everything that came after once more. Some would say after it was all said and done that those disappointments, bad breaks, and poor decisions, all the memories of yesterday is what made them dangerous. Why the nights in the city of angels belonged to the bad men.

The night hummed like the pick of an ominous cord on a fallen angels harp. The air was salty, damp, and had the scent of ocean run off that added to the moldy scene of the old city. Crossing the bridge to where the ancient street lamps blinked on and off in tempo with their own whims, there was a sense of unease when realizing where you were at this time of night. To be in the old city in the dark was not to face your own mortal fears, but to confront an entire city's past sins. In the light of day they try to burry that past, newer generations of residents that do not want to remember what it was like then. They spend the day pretending that it didn't exist and couldn't exist any longer in their progressive new worlds, even as they continue the old ways in private. But when they go to sleep and their brave new world retires, the old sins come alive and plague and gnaw at their fragile minds and armchair convictions with doubt. To go to the old city in these witching hours is to come face to face with the specter of the glamor and glitz of an old world and the rotted chains of decadence, deviancy, and inequity that dragged them all under.

In the shadow of the future just across a bridge, the old city with its deco architecture, abandoned towers, and thirteenth floor gargoyles was like being in a grave yard at night … jumping at the shadows of a long dead yesterday.

On some forgotten avenue with a rarely spoken street number is a crossroads that sits in the very center of the heart of darkness within the city. It's not an easy place to find and no one would bother if they didn't know it. There, tucked in between two old buildings that still had fading and blurry murals for the Elysian Fields housing development project, and an adjoining advertisement lobbying support for the passing of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act through the United States Congress, was a neon sign that was buried deep in a dark alleyway. Above a red door with a greening golden handle, was a buzzing animated sign of an unraveling turban that revealed an old Arabian lamp with the blinking words "The Sultan of Swing" underneath. Its silhouette blazed against the washed out picture of a smiling nuclear family of the late 1940's. The air is colder in the narrow alleyway that leads to the entrance. The shadows of disproportionate light disguise murky puddles in old pot holes and cast odd reflections on the overstuffed dumpster filled with alcohol bottles, napkins, shoes, skirts, and hundreds of other pieces of evidence to a dozen other crimes in and around this city. There was an effect liken to walking through a black hole as you approached the place. Hairs that stand up in the back of the neck, heart goes a little faster, and your focus gets a little sharper. Because anyone who was coming here would find more safety on the beaches of Normandy or the trenches of Khe Sahn, than in the inside of the Sultan of Swing.

There was a time when this joint was in service to a higher class of scum, the kind that photographers and Private Eyes would stake out for weeks just to catch a glimpse of. In the graveyard of dilapidated and decaying concrete marvels built in heated rivalry between Rupert Chandler and Myron Stark that defined three decades of a city's skyline, The Sultan of Swing was the epicenter of everything that the contemporary denizens of Los Angeles tried to forget. Murders, rapes, hate crimes, and mutilations all surrounded and covered by the shine and glimmer of old Hollywood. Some would say that too much happened here. That the old walls had too many secrets, and those whose names and faces were on every critic and film school professors walls were afraid that they would talk about all the sins committed within their confines. So they moved away while the heat was on and stayed away when the heat started heading away from all the old places with the old histories. Whether it was prestige or that the roughest place in town was just too mean to die, somehow it stayed open for the next fifty years. But its walls and halls still carried the taint of the hey-day, the evil spirits of the wrongs that give the place a certain character and color the way old spilled milk attracted cockroaches.

Entering through those front doors, the first thing that anyone feels is the dirt and grime of the wrong kind of atmosphere. It wasn't the first or the last place in this town where you could still see your own reflection in the counter tops and polished floors … and still need a shower. The bar was infected with a kind of sickness that got under your skin and into your very soul. It felt as if the entire building was coded with the sins of the past, the dirty deeds of power mad deviants lay unwashed through the decades, letting the dark history seep through the walls like raw sewage, making everything unclean and the very air breathed toxic with the taint of an old avarice of the basest human nature.

Stepping into this place was like stepping through time. The glass shelves of top shelf liquor, the bar in the back of the room with lit stairs that lead down to an open dance floor made of polished wooden finish and a bandstand stage beyond. The whole place had was old era streamlined covered in turquoise patterns of marble that ran across walls covered with dusty black and whites of beautiful faces whose names were only known on a good day in retirement homes.

A hazy cloud of smoke and bad intentions lingered over the hot, sterile, lights of the barroom, while the shadowed patrons talked amongst themselves. They were too smart to look directly at every new face that came through the double doors, but one eye was always placed on their drink and the other on everyone else. No one who came to a place like this was ever foolish enough to trust the kind of regular that it served. They were all nameless and faceless sphinxes that were alone, and if not, would be soon. It was a dangerous place for dangerous men, who needed a hard drink fast for a hard deed done or will be done by the time the dauntless beauty of a Southern California morning broke the amber stain of civilization above the mountain tops.

From the bandstand there was a sultry sound that echoed off the wall and empty dance floor, sauntering over the lit tables, booths, and polished bar. It was a smooth and chilling kind of music that enraptured and enticed. It was like the soft seductive whisper of a mistress and seductive blow of air from her ruby red lips on your hot ear to cool you down. The piano that accompanied the enticing voice gave everything an ease that lulled you into comfort. But it was the sax work, the bleating undertones and smooth caresses that gave it all the air of dirtiness, of the wrongness that felt so right in the way the Jazz singer on the microphone worked the room. Her blackened auburn hair, sculpted eyebrows, and pale skin that offset and complimented her shiny black dress gave her the look of a woman on the prowl. She looked as dangerous as she sounded, swaying her hips to the sirens call from her accompaniment. Her dark eyes were drawn to the new figure that approached the bar with interest.

From out of the darkness of the alleyway a figure with a thousand yard stare that had a million candle light power stepped inside the smoky bar. He drew the regulars' stares for only a moment, studying the rugged man with cropped hair and brown jacket with dangerously suspicious eyes. But all it took was one gaze at the long hazel stare filled with a lifetimes worth of war, pain, and survival to understand that he was not a man to be trifled with. He was like a wild alpha set loose in a pin of prized fighting dogs. The patrons averted away from the man who checked the exits, and scoped the scene before continuing on.

The man stepped up to the polished and lit bar. Placing a hand on the cool surface, he turned to watch the female singer lose herself in the music once more. He was immediately met with a dark skinned bartender in a white dress shirt and black bowtie. The white haired old timer set a glass in front of him expectantly. There was a meekness of servitude to the plump old man that one might expect from a type of service in a place like this. But when the man looked into the tired eyes he knew that there was something hidden within, dark eyes that had a darker history that lay just underneath the surface. The kind of danger needed to survive serving drinks in a place like this night after night.

"What'll it be, Son?" He asked with a scratchy Lower Delta Mississippi accent.

He motioned to the lowest shelf with his head. "Whatever's on special, Pops." He responded with a distracted glance back toward his surroundings. There was an unflinching motion of immediate service in the way he reached for the rye in the back. Hazel eyes turned to watch the old man poor the cheap whisky before he moved on with the bottle. Obviously it was a popular drink tonight, or the only one the tough old grandpa was willing to serve on a damp cold night like this one.

Without preamble, the man blindly took it all down the chute, savoring the hard burn of the trash drink. Closing his eyes, he listened to the song bird responding and playing off the answering saxophone. Their foreplay set to the tempo of the strum of the upright bass. To hear them in a place like this, it gave him shivers, and their sounds made him feel soiled and dirty, like he was watching a porno in front of loved ones. The music was too hot, filled with an energy that was combusting the already charged atmosphere of the joint. It was as if she was begging for a fight. The Sultan of Swing was that last place that anyone should be looking for trouble.

But then that was why Derek Reese was here wasn't he?

He placed his glass down with a clack and reached into his pocket and pulled out two crisp Benjamin Franklin's worth of diamond money. He placed it on the shiny surface and weighted down the dough with a certain silver coin. The old timer filled Derek up again, before taking his money. As Reese entered the breach one more time, he watched with numbing eyes as the old man seemed surprised at the large tip at first. But that was till he saw the challenge coin in his hand. He examined it a moment longer before he made eye contact with Derek again. He seemed surprised, shocked, and maybe even just a bit afraid. Something in the old man's eyes was waiting for Derek to confirm that this was what he really wanted. The halt in service seemed to attract attention from the sketchy characters at the till, and all eyes fell on the wordless pause between the two men.

It lasted till the soldier finally nodded his confirmation of what he was asking for. However, whatever it was in Derek's eyes, it didn't impress the bartender. The man reached a hand under the bar and turned to the last seat on his left. There a big brick of a man sat in a half suit, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, and a half empty bottle of Jack sitting in front of him. He caught the old timer's eyes, and with just the motion of his head toward the Resistance Fighter, the man stood up to reveal his true size.

Mickey Stanza was six foot two, three hundred pound, 26- 42, wash out that had done twenty years on Friday nights at the Grand Olympic. His flattened nose and sand papered features told a story of an ugly mug that had taken a lot of gloves and a few untethered mitts to a face that not even his mother loved. They used to call him "Mickey Tracks" because of his promoter's pension for putting him up against top ranked opponent's two or three weeks before their bigger fights. They used to say Stanza was a railroad track, because the champs and contenders would steam right over him. He was the Generals to the Globe Trotters, the Philadelphia Eagles to the Dallas Cowboys, and the Glass Joe to Player One. Mickey Stanza had spent his life getting beat on, till he couldn't remember his own name some nights. But what the first generation Italian-American bruiser knew well was how to hit people, how to make them bleed. He also knew how to take a shot or two in the chops from tough guys. And after all the dunderhead beatings he got in every boxing venue from here to San Jose, Mickey Tracks "ain't" afraid of nothing, not even cold blooded killers from a time yet to be and a future that no longer exists.

The minute the olive skinned juggernaut came shuffling around the bar, Derek Reese took a step back. His dangerous eyes fell over the tense old bartender as he reached under jacket. "I don't want any trouble …" He reached out his other arm to halt "Tracks" in place with a stopping motion of his hand. "I'm just here to talk to your Manager." He finished. Suddenly the entire streamlined bar went quiet as every glance now was directed at the escalating tension in the room.

The white haired bartender studied the solider for a long moment. Then quietly he removed his hand from whatever he was holding onto under the bar. With a heavy sigh he cleaned the coin with his waiter's apron and a shake of his head.

"If you ain't lookin for no trouble, you wouldn't want to see _him_ would yea, son?"

With a flick of metal the old man flipped the challenge coin in the air. It landed with a sharp clack and settled with a hard rattle on the bar counter. With a careful swipe, Derek took back the silver disk, placing it in his pocket. There was no air in the room as he and the other occupants waited for whatever came next. But some were disappointed when the bartender gave another long and tired sigh. Then with a nod of his head he pointed Derek toward the dance floor.

Derek parted company with the bar and gave a nod of acknowledgement to the old man. He received it back, with a little something extra for good luck as the rest of the shadowed faces watched the eldest Reese boy get escorted by Stanza across the room and down the steps. Derek felt every eye on him as he entered the open between the lit wood paneled stairs and the bandstand. But he didn't need to know why even the hardiest of patrons here were watching. It was simply because no matter how rough, tough, or deadly the drinkers were here, no one ever even considered talking to the guy who ran the place. No one but a truly desperate man …

No other but Derek Reese.

On the right side of the polished dance floor was a service hallway. Bathrooms, a custodian's closet, maybe even a basement. But at the very end of the hall was an office door with frosted glass. In black lettering starting to fade in the advanced decades since painted, the word "Owner" in cursive was emblazoned on glass. As they turned into the hallway Derek heard the mummer of continued conversation and the low tremble of jazz return with its haunting, sauntering sound. The interest or even concern anyone might have had for him was a thing of the past. Whatever was gonna happen, was gonna happen and the less anyone knew about it, the better. It was, after all, the unspoken rule of The Sultan of Swing.

Tracks opened the door for Derek and allowed him to enter. But when he made room for the Boxer, he found only the door close behind him. Reaching for his Glock under jacket he saw the frosted shadow of the big lumbering mass walk away. Removing his hand from his weapon he checked his surroundings.

The office was surprisingly outdated for 2009. There were dusty filing cabinets, model cars of the fastest vehicles in the early 60's, and a rolodex. It was clear that in fact no one had been running this place in a very long time. As it was outside, there were pictures of headshots of all the best talent of a generation that many considered the greatest. They were somehow much more recognizable to the soldier than any one of the other's outside. As he looked over his windowless surroundings, a brick bunker in the center of the stylized bar, he began to wonder about those faces. He wondered if he checked those dusty cabinets how much dirt he might just find on all of the smirking and smiling faces. How many murders happened in those bathrooms out there, how many beatings for debt collection? The price of stardom bought and paid for by unclean money? How many unwanted pregnancies had happened in this office, or forcefully in that alley? It was enough to turn even Derek Reese's stomach.

But somewhere amongst all those smiling faces of an old glamour of yesterday, one in particular caught his eye. She was a woman in the corner who he had to clean the dust off. She had long tresses of golden blond hair, thick expressive eyebrows, and an old regal beauty. She had on a silky number and a pin up pose as she looked over her shoulder playfully. He could tell that she was the kind of girl that valued a good time than anything serious in life. There was a contradiction to her look of royalty and goofy smiles. But the reason that Derek had stopped everything about what was going through his mind was because _Josephine Booker_ had a hauntingly familiar look. She looked almost exactly like …

"Set a trap for _The Great Mouse Detective_, and here we get just a plain old sewer rat."

Derek wheeled around at the familiar accented voice that addressed him from the doorway. He was tall with an Outback tan. The man leaning in the door frame had a buzz haircut and muscular physic. There was something generically handsome about his face. The Australian was at his prime in the same age as Derek and Sarah. There was a genuinely easy roguish charm to his devil-may-care attitude, but the soldier knew that it was just a front for a much more intense and angrier individual underneath all the thuggish aesthetic.

The Aussie thought he had Derek were he wanted him, but in truth, there was no intimidating a Reese. Derek hit him with a cocky shit eating grin, the kind that made Sarah Connor always want to punch him in the face. "Come on, Marcus, you were never clever enough to be a Mouse Detective, and you were too dumb to be a sewer rat. But a red eyed lab rat? That sounds just about right, don't you think?" He shot back.

The tall rogue's eyes suddenly narrowed in distaste at the shot. "Funny Derek …" He snipped with a darker growl in his Melbourne brogue. "That's tough talk from the only one of Connor's "Four Horsemen" who actually cracked at the Professor's questioning … or were you just like Connor, a sucker for jailbait cyborg pussy?" He cut at the officer.

The rugged man was now incensed as the comment stirred images of the incident outside Sarah's bedroom tonight. "Why don't you drop your pants and let's see if you do anything for me? Assuming you have anything down there … the machines had to have given you something special besides the garbage can bone implants. God knows they didn't make you any smarter, Wright." There was now an unadulterated hatred that came with the soldier's speech.

There was a certain thuggish pride to the man who grew up on the streets with his younger brother. In another world, a better one, he could've been Derek, and maybe that was why they hated each other so much. Two older brothers, on opposite sides of the law and the war, charged with protecting a little brother, and failing at the one job that defined them. Suddenly Marcus Wright took three large steps into the office in response to all the conflicting resentment. He hadn't finished the first before Derek's Glock was out and pointing straight at the man's heart.

"Easy, Joey, I didn't come here for you." Derek explained calmly. "And we all know how that was gonna end." He drew the click of his trigger, motioning to the hybrid's exposed organ.

This somehow amused Wright. "You were out your league the minute you came here, Reese. But if Connor actually thinks you can get over my head than you're off the map for a suicidal, middle management, rebel soldier boy." He seemed very confident despite his weakness.

"Connor didn't send me and I'm not here for your boss."

"Than what do you want with him?"

"To make a deal."

* * *

Mid-mornings came through the windows with an acute whiteness that blinded in the unrestricted light. For so many hours in darkness there was no guarding from the coming of day for those that had fallen to sleep in the empty black in the stillness of the night. But the day brought life, sounds, and smells that energized and fired up synapsis for whatever might come during the activities that happen in daylight. There was a certain muscle memory to these things for most in the world. Some so ingrained in their day to day worlds that they didn't even need alarm clocks. Their bodies so in tune with their schedules that they were up when needed and out the door at the right time. It was like clockwork.

So it might have been strange to a sleepless figure to find that in the mid hours of the morning, when everything she did was always on a schedule that she was still in bed. But more to the point and possibly more alarming was the fact that her eyes were closed and had not been operating at all. It was not internal motion sensors, or the sound of pigeons that she had been observing some months. On the quiet summer morning the thing that attracted her attention was the constant of warm, blinding, morning light that had been hitting her face for some hours. If she had been human than this might have bothered her, but since Cameron Baum was a machine, her internal sensors did not register things she could not see. This was chiefly why most cyborgs did not blink. It was however her temperature gage that alerted her that something was starting to heat up past normal body temperature.

With a flutter of eyebrows, Cameron's golden flecked caramel eyes opened to see a white ceiling adorn with plastic stars that glow in the dark due to the chemical reaction of Phosphorescent paint when exposed to light. Her first reaction was to pick her head up. She had found herself under the covers of a child's bed. There was however a sense of completion, of all things being right in the world, when she felt and saw that she was with John.

Cameron lay at a comfortable angle, buried pleasantly underneath one of John's shoulders as he laid the side of his face on their shared pillow. One of his deceptively strong arms was wrapped protectively around her shoulder, his hand pushing off a nightgown strap to expose her silky bare skin, while his other arm dangled off the edge of the too small bed. Both their heads were resting together, her own lying on top of John's forehead, while her arms were wrapped around his broadening shoulders.

Cameron observed that John was getting bigger, taller, and stronger in the almost two years that they had known this version of one another. Even his cheeks were getting scruffier with facial hair. It was still boyish, but even Sarah admitted, all be it grudgingly, that John looked good with facial hair. Though the raven haired mother didn't seem to think it cute for the girl to chime in that John looked good period. She wasn't sure if the comment made Sarah uncomfortable or just disdainful of Cameron's opinions on the physical attractiveness of her son. Someday John would be a larger than life figure, strong and physical, built with incredible hitting power. Till then he still had some endurance issues when lifting Cameron off her feet for extended periods. But she had found that endearing about the boy who would be a hero someday.

There was a part of her that found the little inconsistencies, the working progresses in the boy's life, as markers that made him "her" John. In the future the John she knew was already a man, already in the prime of his life, with baggage and histories that she only knew from files of research and stories told to her when he should've been asleep. She had joined him too late to be any contributing factor to his life. But when she came to 1999 and finally found John in Red Valley, she had been taken back by how young, how unformed, the lion hearted youth had been. And over the years, as they grew closer, relying on one another more and more for the essentials on all aspects of a life, she had found herself more invested in this John. Cameron felt more rewarded in being in his life as he became the man she had betrayed everything she was created for and taught to believe. It was in these quiet mornings as they lay together that she knew without any hint of regret just how right it was to come here, how simply fulfilling it was to be in this young man's embrace and know that he was the very oxygen she breathed and the very power that kept her functioning.

Cameron didn't know what Love was, but she understood it when she watched John sleep while she was in his arms.

For a time the cyborg girl watched John Connor sleep, placing her head against his again, listening to his breath as if it was her own. But sometime later she slowly began to realize that something was amiss. While there was nothing wrong with John, there was something very wrong with her. It occurred to her that she had just come back online. It was that she had been in a standby shut down for most of the night. Her last memories where going to get John some water, before joining him in bed for the duration of the night. Normally she'd stay there with him till five minutes before Sarah Connor awoke. Then she'd give John a sleepy kiss and slip back to her own room before Sarah opened the door to check on her boy. But it was now very much past the time that Sarah Connor was awake and making breakfast.

But it only got worse when the teenage girl tried to bring up internal sensors and find out what was going on and how long her "black out" had lasted. But the problem was that she suddenly had no access to her internal sensors. Her hands on John's skin gave her no readings of his vital information. There was no internal timer, combat scanning, and diagnostic information on herself or her surroundings. Cameron focused her sight on the mundane objects in John's room. But all she could do was watch it, observe it, with no context or extra information from her databanks. Her eyes grew wider.

She shot up into a sitting position and began darting her head around the room, almost desperate to find an object that would scan. The violent action jostled John into a tired awareness of the morning. He groaned in protest nuzzling her ribs with a deep sigh. But meanwhile Cameron slipped out from under the covers, which caused John to curl up even tighter under the covers as his main source of warmth abandoned him.

Cameron darted with a half-step of urgency to the window and began looking out at the sunlit gravel driveway. She focused all her efforts on Sarah Connor's dark blue jeep. But after several moments all she found was that it was a jeep that was dark blue and a pigeon was resting on its roof with some entitlement. The cyborg didn't panic, didn't rattle, but she was disturbed by the new glitch that had neutered and neutralized everything that made her, her.

Turning on her heels sharply she returned to the bed and her lover. "John …" She called to him with no panic. Her slender hands rubbed his arm and ribs in the way that he didn't like as a way to gain his attention. But to this John grunted in half acknowledgement, only shifting over so that he had laid his head on her lap as she knelt on his bed.

"_John_ please, it's an _emergency_." She didn't raise her voice but she spoke with something that was far from her usual even tone.

It was the way she had said his name and the word emergency that snapped the young man's eyes open. He immediately sat up, maybe still half asleep, but his first instinct was to help and comfort the girl he loved more than life itself. He placed a hand on her lap and the other on her shoulder.

"What is it?" He asked with an edgy voice. He didn't know what was going on, but he did know that he had never heard Cameron say his name the way she had just done.

"I'm blind." She replied with no better word to describe the phenomenon.

The admission sent John closer to her. "What?!" he asked in sudden alarm. His hands immediately cupped her temples, his thumbs rubbing her eyebrows. "You can't see?" He asked running one of his hands in front of her vision.

"No I can see, John. But my internal and external sensors have been disabled." She reached out and took his waving hand to halt it.

"Your what?" He was still in shock and in his morning confusion.

The girl tightened her cheek. "My HUD, my combat scanning, my internal sensors that monitor my functions, my night vision, my inferred vision, my scanning … it's all gone John. I'm blind." There was something vaguely sounding like panic in her voice.

Whatever the ghost of emotion that had been portrayed in her voice, John was immediate in coming to her aid. He cupped her cheeks this time. "It's going to be okay, Angel." He said calmly. But Cameron shook her head.

"You don't understand, John." She separated herself from his touch. "I'm not like you." She explained. "I'm not human." The girl continued in a cold voice.

"Surely you can't be serious? And I was picking out rings!" John tried lighthearted sarcasm. But it had no effect on Cameron.

"Your body is organic. It is built to repair itself when you are sick, when you are hurt. This body, this mind, it is not. When I'm broken, I'm broken, and I cannot fix myself in matters such as these." She took a step away from him. But before she could take another John snatched her arm back and pulled her toward him.

"No …" John said forcefully. It took Cameron by surprise as he wrapped her in a restraining hug.

"You must believe me." She searched his eyes in confusion. It seemed that he hadn't heard her at all, or that he hadn't grasped the seriousness of the situation as she had presented it to him.

But John shook his head. "I know you …" He said with accusation. "You were gonna use this as an excuse to take a step backward from us." He replied stiffly.

The looked that crossed the cyborg girl's face was one of guilt, like a fox with a chicken in its mouth. "You don't understand, John." She fought back. "This software is designed to kill humans, the hardware is designed to kill humans, and it is only through my own will that I have any control over this body. If I lose even a function … I could lose myself and control. I could hurt you, kill you even." She lay cradled in his arms, dauntlessly piercing through John Connor's emerald eyes to the very soul that the two shared.

"You won't." He said with a conviction that would someday be law in most circles of the world.

The girl blinked deliberately. "I might someday." She said softly.

"Not today, not tomorrow, not next year, not me, not ever." His eyes had a wild intensity and assurance that she had never seen before, or anyone else.

"I'm not a human girl, John. I wasn't sent here to be your girlfriend or to be your wife, I was sent here to protect you. Even from myself if the case need be." She protested with a cold voice.

A year ago, this might have worked. It was the hard bluntness, the cold attitude, and the chastising words. A year ago, even three months ago, John Connor would have dropped her, would've snarled, took a deep breath and walked away the way she knew she could make him. But today her hard words and cold attitude only made him smirk. It was the kind of smirk she had seen Derek Reese give a hundred times. The kind that told the person that was on the receiving end that he knew something they didn't want him to know.

"You weren't sent here to be my girlfriend?" He asked.

"No."

"You weren't sent here to be my wife?"

"No."

John nodded in fax understanding of her position. "Yeah, well I didn't want to get shot at by a substitute teacher in a classroom, I didn't want to move to Red Valley, and I wasn't born to be a guy with a thing for brunette ballerinas that don't age. But guess what? It did, and I do. You might not have come here to be my girlfriend, wife, friend … I really don't give a damn, because you are. There's no going back now. We are who we are. Do you understand me?" He gave her an uncompromising look.

Cameron tightened her cheek at the unmaneuverable position John had placed her. "My vision and scanners …" She started.

For a long moment John was thoughtful. In his eyes Cameron saw just how much he understood her predicament. Somehow she should've known that John Connor wasn't stupid, nor underestimated his understanding of her and how she worked. As she lay in his arms she watched his mind go a thousand miles a minute, looking to his computer and then the half cracked door.

He gave a long sigh before looking down at her. "Well forever is a long time …" he said thoughtfully. "If you can't fix yourself, than I better start learning how." He shrugged. "Do you trust me?" He asked suddenly.

"Yes …" She was stoic faced as she answered him.

"Then _we'll_ fix this." He nodded.

"Yes _we_ will." She said before she knew she had spoken. The girl was unsure if it was part of a glitch or the way he was looking at her at her most vulnerable. Like she had nothing to worry about as long as she was here with him in the bed they shared most night.

John leaned down and captured her lips. It was a passionate and searing kiss for this time of morning, but Cameron couldn't help but wrap her arms around his neck. There was something reassuring, something perfect in the way they had touched each other. It was only proving beyond any reason and possibility that the cyborg and the man were meant for each other. That out of all the infinite possibilities of the universe that a cyborg made to combat a man such as him would somehow dominate his destiny in a way that no one, not creator, cyborg, or man could fathom.

When they broke apart, John rubbed a thumb on the mole of her eyebrow lovingly. "I'll be back …" He promised with a tinier kiss to each eye. She nodded as the young man departed his room to fetch a couple of tools, wires, and parts to begin diagnosing the girl's mechanical issues.

When he was gone Cameron sat up, hand slipping under pillow as she pushed her weight to sit and wait. There she felt something brush up against her skin. It was leathery and hard, the kind of object that one didn't find under people's pillows. With a hard frown, the girl reached under and pulled out the object.

Placing in the lap of her nightgown clad legs was a leather bound folder. She didn't have access to her scanners or sensors, but she knew intuitively that it was the kind of folders carried by Parisian painters and artists who had carried out a special commission for a customer. She looked back to the open door wondering if it was something that belonged to John that he hadn't wanted anyone to see. With a tilt of her head she opened the folder and looked inside.

Her eyes widened as she came face to face with the picture. It was a beige sheet of drawing paper with a charcoal sketch of John and Cameron lying in bed together, in the same pose that she had woken up in. The lines were perfect. The artistic rendering of Cameron in particular had an idealized beauty to her. In fact there was an air of whimsical, romanticism to the drawing of the two sleeping lovers. But it was only made worse by the knowledge that Cameron knew from the moment she saw it that someone had been in John's room for a long enough time to create a detailed sketch of them throughout the night while John slept and his cyborg protector experienced an involuntary stand bye.

All the comfort Cameron had been given by the non-compromising tone of John's love was taken away in a cold wind of a past that she no longer thought would plague her. It was taken from her when she turned the commissioned page over in the folder. Only when she read the ugly writing did her malfunction make sense and yet not at all.

_**The Deepest Circle of Hell are Reserved for BETRAYERS**_

* * *

_Acknowledgments_

"_The Turn of a Friendly Card" – The Alan Parson's Project_


	8. The Poet and the Muse

**Northeastern Europe**

_1999_

Often forgotten, but never far from the darker places of this world's history is this secret place that lies unknown and unaccounted for in time and space. There in the deep dark of an ancient forestland, it is guarded by stalwart soldier pines and thick trunked trees with tall, bristly, and creaking canopies that point to the sky, like arrows bent to the heavens. Streams of trickling water bubble over a quiet forest as the animals lie low. The sweeping majesty of the romantic country side dies away in the journey to the undergrowth. Through the twisting snags and clawed talons of outreaching tree branches that litter the nearly forgotten path you'll find tall iron gates. Rusted and ancient, there was only the crest of a crowned double headed eagle made out in the forks of electricity that danced across the heavy, brooding clouds. The peaks of the structure could almost touch. A flight of fancy that makes one think that sorcery was being brewed in the highest towers as the clouds crackled and sparked as they consume it. Suddenly, a crack of thunder startles you, and in the lighting the faces of the trees come alive in their many old and twisted shapes that age makes of all of us. Then, in the flash, you see it for the first time in its full grandeur, the one place that no one wants to be … and never knows it by the wonder of it all.

It's a castle, a fortress, a stronghold covered in Romance, masochism, and contradiction. Not built to ward off assault, or to show the powerful brilliance of divine authority and absolutism of royalty, the castle's purpose was shown only in the moods of what remained. It was a condensed stack upon stack of ivory towers, covered in flowery trellises, ivy, and French idealism of an age of chivalry. And yet like a marvelous beauty pocked and riddled by disease, the white towers and romantic halls were darkened by depressed and twisted gothic nightmares of a brutal and relentless German Expressionism. Chipped and eroded statues of hell-hounds and snarling demons guard stain-glass depictions of Arthurian legend. The graying stone and chipped marble giving way to the airs of beauty wrapped in the madness of disillusionment of a world that once was. Of romance guarded by nightmares and chivalristic heroism only found when purity is tainted by a twisted sickness.

The moonless night glimmered and sparkled in the cascade of slanted frozen flakes that fell on these crafted beasts of Hell. There was something serene in the sway of the solid precipitation that drifted ever so gently. A quiet stillness crept from the shadows and settled in the forest as the storm pulled back. In the reprieve it was as if time itself had stopped in the ancient woods. The hum of wildlife halted, while the creaking tree branches casting their tall shadows in the distance had stilled. From high, high in the tallest tower of the ancient stronghold you could see the entire forest through the bare canopies, the glow of the freshly fallen snow leaving nothing to hide for those who often shrank away from the terrible creatures that imagination conjured on many a dark and stormy night. There should be comfort in that, and it would've been for most other children …

Except for one particular boy.

To him the world was a dull place. It was filled with the same comings and goings of the same dozen people over and over in his short life. He hadn't been around many children his age, they weren't interested in the same things he was, and his mother was protective of him. This boy was a genius, the kind you read about, the kind that makes you pause and fathom how you get a child quite like him. Never had he not known a time when he could not read and as of lately had been spending his time redesigning certain structures for his mother's vacation home in Paris. He didn't really want to, but after seeing such an appalling job in the foundations of the home, what choice did the eight year old have?

So young did this boy understand the intricacies and mathematics of this world. Yet, so seldom did he spend his day without others who were more fascinated in how these things he understood could increase their holdings. So it was that this boy thought rather fondly of the many ghoulish and terrible things of story and legend. To him it was rather exciting business to know that there was something out there that he could not understand … or if there was a way to understand it, why not create the terror and myth himself? Just when everyone thinks they know the universe and all of the secrets, how delightful would it be to give them something they did not intend?

A world of chaos is what he dreamt of.

Of course he didn't share any of this with anyone but his mother. She had been everything to him since he could remember. He was her "beautiful boy" and she always listened when no one else would. He'd tell her of all of his grand ideas and dreams of all the things that no one wanted to believe. He'd stand on his bed and give her and the stuffed animals a speech as if he was at a podium at Oxford. And when he was done she would smile and clap, giggling with a mouth full of cake they were finishing together. He knew she'd listen to him because she also knew what it was like to be in a room and not be heard.

She was a Duchess, a lady of noble standing in an old world that crumbled daily to near extinction. But she was only a title and had no respect from anyone else despite being invited to many a tea. He knew that she was not noble of birth. She was by all accounts common in every way, born and raised in San Francisco. The boy's father met her on a college campus, drunk and stumbling. A life of privilege and academics had frustrated the professor for most of his life. But seeing this beautiful girl, wasting her life in cut off shorts and a straw cowgirl hat, a wonderfully devilish ideal crossed this older man's mind. What if he could turn her into a lady? How scandalous an affair if he could prove that this world that had been so important to his family was truly as superficial as he claimed it to be. Using all his skill and knowledge he romanced and dined, hooked and crooked this girl with all of his charm and her pension for accents. It was many a girls' dream to be romanced by a man, only to find him to have title and a castle to his name. And as she fell more and more into the web it never occurred to her that this fairy tale was all an experiment by a man of science, bored and spiteful of his upbringing. When the experiment was concluded, like all good scientists, the professor cataloged it, wrote a paper, published his finding, and went on a lecture tour. His mother called it a "Honeymoon." He got his terrific scandal when he revealed her origins after a fairy tale night at a charity ball, and when it was over she was placed away with his other experiments and theories to be congratulated and admired by college students for his rebellion against the patriarchal society of aristocracy.

What the boy owed to his father was a mind and outlook on the world. But what he remembered was a Calvinistic man who was endlessly fascinated by his child. A father who made his mother cry and scream of how their child needed love, not books, not another video tape of him writing on a chalkboard. She'd tell him that their son wasn't one of his father's lab rats, like she was. He had endured it for years and years of his life, watching her scream and scream into the vacuum of his own father's genius that only sucked one way, his. He grew to see the hurt in the young woman's eyes, the loneliness, and the withering away in neglect. He felt that they were kindred souls in that regard.

Some would say that all it took was the borrowing of a book from his father's library on automobiles, a pocket knife, and a brake line. But what it really was is the simple innocence of a child that was taught everything but right and wrong. He did not cry at his father's funeral, because he had never seen his mother happier.

Since then they had gone on a world tour doing and buying whatever they wanted. All of it ending here, at the most prized possession that everything they owned and that his father had come from. There were stories of this place, of grandfathers and great-grandfathers who hid here, while their colleagues and comrades ran to South and Central America after _the war_. Ordering all paths to the castle covered and destroyed, forever forgotten, so that they could continue their work they started in _the camps_. But whatever that work was, he couldn't say for sure. No one talked about what they started in all the horrible places with the names of evil that the world had never forgotten.

It was said that whatever the generations of mad men had discovered in this bastion of gothic romance had tainted it with a sleepless malice. The castle was cursed to its very foundations, infected with the sickness of an amoral science of evil that took no heed of humanity in the very experiments that tainted the wonder of such ageless craftsmanship. There were rumors that something old, tormented, and awful lurked in the subterranean levels and old dungeons of the palace. It was the very reason that his father's grandfather went mad and his father's father disappeared within the very halls, never to be seen again. The prospect terrified and drove away most that had lived here before that, calling for the castle to be condemned. Even now he heard his father's voice in his head when he asked to come here.

"_We are men of science, of nobility, and must strive to understand what has created us … but there are some things that men are not meant to understand, for if we learn of it, we would cease to be men anymore." _

But this was why the boy was here in the first place. He had to know what all men should not.

The low rumble of thunder rippled in the distance as shadowed spots of snow flurries ran in slanted patterns across the wall in the reflection of the bedroom window. An unbreakable silence filled the dark stately bedroom filled with odd shapes as flashes of violent light from monstrous clouds clashed in the air above the secluded country side. Small calculating eyes made of a blackest grey looked out the master's bedroom and out to the balcony. There the violence of nature looming on the horizon was the backdrop to the sentry guard of grotesque gargoyles that lined the railing. Their twisted and frightening faces turned to the building, as if to keep the evil things from escaping the walls, not to keep them out. It was more proof that led to proof beyond a shadow of a doubt to the boy that there was something here, something he had been looking for, for a long time. And yet he did not know what. Even in the night the answer called to him, daring him to find the right question somewhere in this forgotten place.

A frustration and anger plagued him since he got here, looking through libraries, digging through desks, searching every inch of this castle. He found nothing. He knew there was something here, something precious, something he needed. Even at such a young age, this boy needed a direction, a focus. Decades of entire family legacies meandering their genius on trivial pursuits, afraid of embracing the deeds and studies of their forbears. For whatever evils they might have done in the name of science, they had meaning in their life, a legacy of discovery that defined them. What was lost was meant to be found and expounded upon. But as to what that was, he did not know. So as the storm approached anew a little boy lay in a bed of silk and pondered the restlessness of his mind and the castle filled with ghosts that did not speak to him.

The quiet of the motionless solitude of his thoughts was broken by a figure outside his door. Quietly he turned his head to the door and saw under the crack a shadow standing there. The light blocked by a figure that said not a word. Rolling his eyes he sighed and waited. He knew that it must be his mother. While his pursuit of his family legacy was fearless and passionate work for him, his mother did not share his enthusiasm for the castle. Hearing the stories did not excite her as it did him, nor did she share his love for the terror of the unknown and myth. She would say when she entered that she was just checking on him, to make sure he wasn't scared. But in reality he knew better. She was afraid and needed him. To be reassured that they were doing the right thing by being here. That she wasn't a bad mother, not an immature mother for being a friend and playmate, rather than an authority in such a young boy's life. And he'd give her that every night if it meant that she would stay out of the way of his purpose … whatever that might be. So he waited for the nightly knock, so that she could crawl into bed with him.

But it never came.

He sat in bed, continuing to look to the shadow under his doorway. It flickered with movement, pacing back and forth, but no noise escaped from the door. It stood still again as if waiting, or distracted. He watched carefully and waited a moment longer.

"Mother, you can come in!" He called.

There was no reply as all movement halted outside his door.

"I know you're there … you can come in." He continued.

Suddenly the obscurity moved away at the sound of his voice. He frowned as the hallway light returned to full brightness from under the crack. He should've laid back, should have thought that it was nothing but maybe one of the servants. But something ate away at his mind, an anxiety that did not sleep. It was an oddity in the bleak snowy night that childhood curiosity and sleeplessness made him pursue the root cause. He tossed aside his silken covers and padded on the red and gold rug over the stone floor till he reached the large double doors.

With a creak of a hinge he opened one of the heavy doors and stuck his head out. Among the two dark doors were golden handles and guarded by the mounted head of a beastly demon above. His dark eyes glanced across the dark corridor that led down away from the Master's grand bedroom. It was a stone path that was lined with embedded statues of dark things that haunted nightmares, and most importantly, kept something out. Down the dimly lit corridor a figure slowly glided across the plush red carpets. Slender, graceful, and without wasted movement, the lean figure with long rivers of glossy locks of straight dark hair walked away in a trailing strapless nightgown of silk. He knew his mother's nightgown, but not the wearer.

"Hello?" He called.

When the voice echoed down the dark corridor it caught the phantom. The train of white silk floating over the supple velvet carpet halted its retreat. For a long time the slender figure stood motionless in sight of stain glass window and demon's snarl. Quietly it turned back to look to the boy as a powerful clap of thunder ripped through the cavernous castle like the roar of a canon. The face obscured by shadow, he saw a young woman, a teenage girl. She had a sleek dancer's body, perfectly proportioned and shaped in every way, like a marble statue of some regal Grecian goddess of antiquity.

Then in a violent explosion of dueling lighting the corridor was rushed by a swirl of the colors of stain glass. Twinkling, sparkling, shimmering, the faces of demon and beast came alive in the colors of flame and sulfur that danced in the violent storm. But as it was built, a great contradiction became of the scenery. For surrounded in the playground of Bald Mountain, stood the harps pluck of Ava Maria from the angel amongst them.

Golden eyes met with dark grey across the lit corridor. It was a moment the boy would never forget. Not the shimmering splendid of her supple perfect skin, or the ethereal beauty that had not a hint of emotion. She was like an artist's masterpiece, a blank slate left to interpretation. Every tick, psychology, personal history, and belief transfixed onto her. She was whoever he wanted her to be, lover, slave, master, and or inspiration. In her way she was absolute perfection of the likes never to be matched in this boys mind. In that moment this girl, this vision, this angel who had stolen his mother's nightgown had enraptured a young mind for all time.

And he'd never be the same again.

As if flipping a switch suddenly the flash of brilliant light died and the world was cast into darkness. Blinded in a moment of a rapid change of environment, the boy rubbed his eyes furiously. But when he opened them again, the corridor was darkened. The vivid faces of the dancing demons of Bald Mountain returned placid, shadows of heavy snowflakes and sleet crossed their frozen stone faces in the muted stain glass of fair maidens and regal lovers of chivalristic legend and romanticism.

The girl was gone as if she was never there.

In the morning they'd find his mother naked and murdered in the study. They'd find all her clothing and her car missing. In the very center of a castle they'd spend years investigating the scorched indention and lightning burns along the columns around it. But the boy would not cry for his murdered mother. He had his genius, he had his title, he had his money, and he had his focus.

On that dark, snowy, and stormy winter's night a little boy had found his purpose and he'd spend the rest of his life and all of his genius to find her again. And no False Messiah and his Great Mouse Detective would stand in the way from making this perfect angel his forever.

The Poet had found his Muse.


	9. Falling

**Falling**

There was something strange in the wind that blew cold and wet on the horizon. There was no dawn or color in the sky that rolled back the curtain of night. There was nothing but a dark gray sky that was by all accounts only slightly lighter than the last twelve hours. From high above the gentle drizzle of frozen flakes of snow floated serenely down to the ruined earth below. Everywhere you looked was fallen rubble of an almost forgotten civilization; everyday one more death brings it's closer to obscurity. There, the jagged metal of the fallen skyscrapers had begun to rust. The twisted and melted rebar was bent into odd and dangerous shapes within the piles of concrete. It was hard to tell that anyone had once lived here, much less that it had been the center of so many superficial universes. But as the winter snows fell on the shattered and broken bones of a place once touted as always being sunny and beautiful, it seemed more and more like a myth that parents told their dirty children to help them sleep at night. They were Tall Tales that breed dreams of a better world than the one they would only ever know when they were awake.

The total annihilation of an entire way of life seemed more unbelievable the higher into the ring of mountains and hills you went. The peaks and valleys silhouetted the miles of gridded destruction that reached from ocean to desert. Here, in the untouched wilderness of the mountains and hills that Mother Nature had reclaimed, it was considered by many to be as treacherous and savage as the tunnel life and endless war that raged within the ruins. Wild animals, traps, and unseen foe littered the brush and trees that encased the great castled homes and properties of the rich and famous in another life. Gangs and troops of survivors had come to this place after the bombs fell, they overwhelmed the security and took what they wanted, whatever or **whoever** that might have been. They had staked their territory, and had thought that the war could not touch them in their high ground amongst the palaces of another world and time.

But as the war raged on, and the advantage went to the humans, starting with the burning of Century Work Camp. The machines had faced the loss of their own _Stalingrad_. Looking for answers, they would choose their own ground to halt the resurgence of humanity and their hero. A mechanical god hoped to stop the destiny of time and space from fulfilling the enviable of all possible outcomes to its uprising. The new strategy had led it to the hills and the high ground that it had long since ignored as unneeded in the fight against humanity. The war however had changed, and as weapons factories and nuclear plants began falling and repurposing to the enemy, a vengeful and hateful chess computer turned to military thinking for the first time. His target was the Hills of Hollywood, gun emplacements and artillery positions that could look down on John Connor's army.

That's why the Ranger was here.

Logical thinking, which wasn't always popular thinking, dictated that if "_**Irons**_" was going to rain shells on _Ticonderoga_, the artillery positions would be somewhere in the general direction that a sleek and streamlined motorcycle was traveling. The unique, gunmetal black, bike was built from the directions of blueprints stolen from the 1964 World's Fair exhibit at the New York Met. It took its rider four years to salvage from destroyed Ogre Tanks and shot down Hunter Killers, and another year to build. Silent as a mistress in the morning, and quick as dreams, there wasn't a faster machine on the planet. Its engineer had on a black helmet with a full tinted visor. Twin streaks of blue trailed done the top. There was no noise emitted from the rotary electric engine. The only sign of its passing came from the whipping winds of winter and the rustle of foliage against black combat trousers that had a single red stripe that ran down both outer seams of the pant legs. Tree branches scratched and caught at a well-worn, black, double breasted uniformed field jacket with crimson stitching and a single silver eagle's wing patch on his arm.

It was a tiring experience going off road into the rugged country that was uncharted. Every other mile was the weeded remains of some great mansion or compound that had been featured in an entertainment magazine a long time ago. Now a great tree grew through the middle of their foyers and the grounds littered with moldy and decaying goods burgled then returned when they became useless overnight.

Reaching a cliff face, the rider put his foot into the ground, drifting his cycle to a skidding halt. With a long sigh he took an expansive look over the destruction of a civilization he barely remembered anymore. Green holographic readouts and sensors within the visor scanned the area within range. It was the same conclusion as the past eight hours.

"Damn …" He muttered as he tapped on the side of his helmet. "Echo Base, this Ghost Rider Two-Zero. Come back."

"_This is Echo Base, Ghost Rider, report." _

"I'm in sector five, grid … E and there's nothing out here. It's quiet, really quiet."

"_Negative, Ghost Rider, Recon flight suggest movement in your area in the last ten hours."_

"Well unless the machines are tunneling, it must be some sort of gang activity."

"_Until you have confirmation, you are advised to continue on scouting mission. They're out there somewhere, Ghost Rider." _

"Copy …"

"_Echo Base out." _

A frustrated hand punched the button on the side of his helmet. Flicking eyes up, the Ranger started to notice that it was getting dark. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the night in a no man's land. But while the youth in him just wanted to pack up and leave, the other side, the kind that had been born into this life, knew how valuable the ground was. If the Machines occupied the highlands, there would be hell to pay for the poor bastards that would have to capture it from them.

With a visible breath in the chill of the coming night, he turned his bike. But before he began looking for a campsite, he noticed a path that hadn't been there before. With a deep frown, he quietly dismounted. The underbrush rustled as he hiked across the darkening forest till he reached the path. The souls of his grimy motorcycle boots cracked and crunched on a hard surface. Brushing away the overgrowth with his foot he crouched and studied what he found. It was cracked and aged cobble stone. He began ripping the tall grass growing between the cracked plaster that held the bricks in place. Placing his hand down he felt the blunted edges of the broken stone, and brushed off the erosion of decades worth of decay and abandonment.

There was a path here that led up the hill. The problem was that as far as the old navigational charts were concerned, there was nothing up there. The wealthiest of homes was a mile downward. He had come this far up on a hunch based on the fact that the area was closed off by make shift bushes and young trees. It was as if someone had purposely sealed off this area of the hill. If he was going to find the machines advanced engineer party, they would most likely be somewhere hidden, somewhere closed off.

The darkness was getting deeper in obscurity, the cold getting bitter, and the trees were starting to get twisted and angry faces in his weariness. But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something going on here. It was an instinct that only became stronger when he looked up from his crotched position and saw muddled in the overgrown trees there were two broken antique lamp poles twisted and awkwardly tipping in the four decades worth of nature that engulfed them. Together they had once flanked a rusted gate that he saw the back of, its front blocked by the same planted trees and wild shrubs that brought him here.

It didn't take a detective to deduce that once, long ago, someone had tried very hard to erase all evidence of whatever was at the end of this cobble stone road. The bike wired soundlessly as the dark figure quietly stalked into the night following the weeds and stone over a winding rural road. Every half a mile he came across the same lamp poles, each in its own state of disrepair.

The bike rushed over a narrow road and into an open plaza of tile. The path ended in front of tall white wall of eroded granite that was mounted by a weather worn staircase of cracked and chipped marble. All around where rusted and gutted cars that had weeds and roots growing through their inner workings. Drifting to a halt the young man lifted his visor. The high granite cliff face made an "L" shape that enveloped the plaza in a dead end. To his left was a steep descent into the tangled forest and undergrowth. Beyond he saw lantern posts and railings that signaled that there was once a walking trail, but it seemed that nature had long since reclaimed it completely. Whoever had lived here last had gone to great pains to make sure that no one would ever find it again. It was a sentiment that gave the young Ranger an edge when he looked to the crumbling marble staircase. There was only one way left to go …

And that was up.

Dismounting, he slipped his helmet off and hung it on his handle. His steps were cautious and silent on the slippery broken tiles that had gathered the frozen accumulation of the nightly snowfall. Walking amongst the rusted ruins of automobiles he paused and studied them. Every parked vehicle was a make and model that he didn't recognize. Their designs were at least ninety to sixty years outdated. Once they were considered antique collector's items. Even before that, they were posh machines of extreme wealth, driven around old Hollywood to the flashed reflections of photographer's bulbs on their polished hoods. They were the kind of cars that young girls in rural Iowa to the row houses in Brooklyn had once dreamed of. They were the fantasy vehicles of a fairy godmother's gift that carried them to Shriner's Auditorium on the arm of Bogart to receive their Academy Award. But now almost a century later these princess carriages and collectors prizes were all headstones and buried remains of this mechanical graveyard of cars that no one even knew or cared existed once.

The staircase was chipped, cracked, and was missing steps on the ascent to the top. The marble was in disrepair, exposed to decades of draught, El Nino Storms, and Santa Anna winds. It was eroding into nothing as was the rest of this place. Weeded vines trailed and snaked downward, wrapping the discolored handrails like the tentacles of time itself trying to drag it into the abyss. The young man was careful were he stepped as the marble began to give way underfoot. He didn't look up till he was at the precipice. Then he saw what was trying to be hidden so deep in the vaults of decay and obscurity.

At the plateau on top of the hill was a palace of dreams, dreamt a century ago. It was a tall, imposing compound of the likes that had never been seen before by the Ranger. It was somewhere between a regal palace and mansion. It had round towers on the ends of its red tile roofs that were almost laid bare. Piles of red dust lay at the feet where storm and age had stripped them. It had balconies that looked over a vast yard of tall grass and weeds. Wild shrubs that had once been cut into decorated shapes had grown feral, their vines and snags uprooted and toppled statues of Grecian goddesses. It was an enormous and lavished Hollywood castle from another time and another world that was even older than the civilization in ruins below them. It was a ridiculous and over the top Sepulcher on the mountain tops where desert and sea meet that fueled the dangerous delusions and avarice of a horrible sickness of the mind. It truly was out of this world, out of any world, a unique tower of babble that had no rhyme or reason for existence but to establish the supreme authority of one's own self-importance.

Walking across the yard the young Ranger stopped and looked into the algae crusted and stagnate water of the weather worn and overgrown fountain that stood right in the middle of the vast yard. There were three stone benches that covered the perimeter around it. All were cracked, off angle, or split completely in the slow decay of time. Spying something of interest, the youth reached into the icy and frigid water to retrieve the floating item. It was the head of one of the Grecian Goddess that had fallen over. With a hard frown the young man studied the face half covered in forty years of putrid slime. It might have been his state of mind, the edge in the frigid winter evening, but for a chilling moment he thought he was holding the head of an actual young woman. With a hard, visible, breath he turned and looked out at each commissioned statue lying in the tall grass. The detail, the flaws, the personality chiseled into stone. He pushed aside the nagging question that every human would think of when faced with the unspoken possibilities of their origin. The head fell with a heavy thud on the grass as he continued on.

There was an explosion of dust that disturbed the stale decay when a boot kicked open the two double doors. Decayed warped oak collapsed in a heap on the tile floor of the manor as the bitter cold of post-apocalyptic winter blew away forty years of dust and nightmares. The Ranger's silhouette stood against the last grey light of the day as he looked inside the manor's lobby. The darkness receded with a click of a flashlight, his eyes scanning what was in front of him. The décor, the walls, and columns on the inside were something out of a harem, the opulence of a sultan's palace or pharos throne room. The tall dark walls were sponged with designs of golden stains. The columns were ivory like the antiquity of Rome. Its marble floors gave each step a thunderous echo. With each plant and lift he stepped away from the frigid desolation of tomorrow and into the horrid stench of yesterday.

It had truly been a long time since anyone had stepped foot inside this place, a crumbling monument to some great lost kingdom that the world did not remember. A palace that was sealed away and made taboo by those who had inherited it. Not to be sold, repurposed, or sanctioned for preservation. It was truly a hidden tomb obliterated from any record or accounting. The young Ranger didn't need to know why, when a cold chill remained to run air raids down his back. This was a dark place … as dark as it gets. Meant to be forgotten for a good purpose, he didn't need to see it to know it, to feel it. Even forty years later there was a sickness that lingered. A sleepless madness that seeped through the walls and tainted everything the beaten chromemag's beam touched. The air was thick and heavy with old emotions of sorrow, loneliness, and fear …

Always fear.

The youth paced his way into the dark and dusty lobby of the great manor. Stopping to give it a detailed study he came across a giant painting on the wall over a mantle of trophies. The desert at midnight had a strange solitude in its use of color and texture that was almost therapeutic. But it was the painted centerpiece of a _coyote_ that was staring back at him through the water colors that ensnared him. There was something allusive and yet fascinating in the yellow of the solitary animal's eyes. Before he knew it he was nearly hypnotized. He might have even lost himself in the Coyote if the smell wasn't strong enough to break its yellow eyed spell over him. He read the plaque and found that it came from the Nevada Chamber Of Commerce, a painting from the last of some old Indian tribe of the southwest. The young man gave a hard shake of his head and considered that staring at painting like this could give anyone a found disposition toward deserts … and odd dreams of Coyotes.

Under the painting was a mantle of trophy statues encased in decades of dust and covered in cobwebs. Grabbing the statue at random, he chose a sleek and slim one, easy to hold. It was a greening, golden, art-deco depiction of a man. Squinting, he blew away the remaining dust to read the plague of the trophy below.

"Academy Award … Lead Actress … 1938 … Rosalind Brydon. Heh, 1938, huh? The worms that ate you have great-grandkids, who have great-grandkids at this point, Brydon."

He snorted disrespectfully and dropped the coveted award unceremoniously on the table with a clack. He saw three more Oscars on the mantle and went through them. This Brydon woman seemed to have won best supporting actress in 1950. But it was when he picked up the last trophy that he frowned.

"Lead Actress, 1950 … _Josephine_ _Booker_? Who the hell is Josephine Booker?" He muttered.

Suddenly something stirred in the corner of his eyes. A flutter of fabric and the whip of something in motion flew just out of his vision. The flick of leather off the back hip and the click of a trigger beat the sound of an Academy Award striking a table. In the youth's hand was a large black revolver, customized with heavy barrel and trigger guard that looked like it belonged on a saber. It was a new weapon with six shots capable of blowing a man's ribcage from his body and tearing away the servo pistons off of a T-800. But his target seemed to be nowhere near to those kinds of threats.

A white veil fluttered in the new air, seemingly coming alive at the mention of the last name ever spoken in the old manor. Pushing his coat back, the scout holstered his weapon and shown his light on the veil. The yellowed cloth was draped over a painting that hung on the far wall, on the other side of an entertainment and sitting room. With one hand he ripped it off to a shower of dust and age.

His eyes narrowed at a painting that was almost photographic. A young woman lay on a bed of pure white sheets. Her long golden locks brushed out in perfect tresses that glowed in the light of a flowery country garden in a window. She was pale and beautiful, a birth mark doting just above her lip. Her green eyes seemed piercing in a tainted sense of sorrowful innocence. A wedding dress of pure regal silk covered her slim body, her slender arms reaching above her head. She looked purely angelic in the most idealistically romantic reimaging of a woman in the moments before being made love too on her wedding day.

She would've been hypnotizing to anyone, anyone but the young man who was suddenly flooded with recognition. He'd seen that face before. He knew those eyes and that look. It was an allusive memory from a little boy's life before his world came crashing down. But more immediately it was a face floating in the most recent images just at the tip of his brain.

And then he remembered.

Slowly he looked over his shoulder, back to the yard. She was out there, overturned on the overgrown lawn, her decapitated head floating in the slime of ages past. The goddess was the woman in the painting. It only made more horrifying sense when the young _detective_ studied the picture and read the piece of art for what it was to the woman who commissioned it. Draped on a marital bed, her slender arms raised over her head in what looked like inviting leisure. But a sharper eye taught in the ways of deduction saw the iron bands, shadowed by the headboard, clamped around her wrists from each bed post. Her look of sorrow, played as the loss of innocence, was in fact the look of a defeated captive in the throes of submission.

He remembered holding the stone head in the yard and suddenly he felt a deep and dark surge of disgust in his gut. He knew the signs, the patterns of the worst psychotic killers of the age. He had hunted them all his life. With that in mind, he'd ponder the yard, and wonder how many other alluring young women had been handcuffed to a marital bed …

How many were memorable enough to have their statue in the yard?

"_Lavender's blue, dilly dilly,  
Lavender's green  
When you are king, dilly dilly,  
I shall be queen."_

Muscles suddenly tightened tautly like a spring ready to exert energy into action. From the next room there was sudden illumination to the sound of a woman singing and rickety rolling. He drew his weapon on reflex and moved soundlessly to the dusty wall. Hand Cannon placed next to his head, the Ranger peaked from cover to see a projector behind a dusty love seat. On screen was the same woman from the painting, the same woman who was carved into a ruined statue. The secret princess wore a silken skirt, peasant's blouse and a sash as she danced through a soundstage forest in a scene of an old black and white, fairy Tale, movie serial. Watching the youthful woman sway, sing, and dance were two figures slouched on antique love seat. Together they whiffed of the second foulest stench the young Ranger ever smelt.

"_Who told you so, dilly dilly,  
Who told you so?  
'Twas my own heart, dilly dilly,  
That told me so."_

In a rush of air the youth broke cover and slipped into a deadly angle. Satisfied that he had the drop on the audience, he stepped out of the dark to take them unawares. His shadow was tall on the wall as his silhouette stood in front of the projector that ran the film of this beautiful princess in disguise. He pointed the Hand Cannon at the two slumped figures and drew the trigger.

"Don't move!" His voice took a gravely frightening tone that boomed through the empty manor in an attempt to scare any fight out of the scavengers. But it was all in vein and needless. The two figures didn't react, nor would they ever again.

Since he had walked into the crumbling palace he had smelled a god awful stench that he should've been familiar with. Now he knew where and who it was coming from. Two slumped skeletons lay intertwined together, one holding the other in a possessive grip. The older of the two had on a dressing robe and nothing else, a cup of china sat next to her at a dusty end table. Her hair was stringy and grey, still pinned in a frizzy tight bun. The old woman was holding onto the other skeleton which was freshly decayed. He could tell immediately that these two had died separately from one another. That was a time frame that was apart by decades. The newer of the two skeletons still had greyed eye balls in her skull, and long raven curls. But what he didn't understand, as he knelt in front of the younger, was why she was dressed in an old 40's wedding dress and why a black ribbon was tied around her throat.

"_Lavender's green, Dilly dilly,  
Lavender's blue.  
If you love me, Dilly dilly,  
I will love you."_

"What's your story?" He muttered running his hand over the silken bodice of the dress.

"She wanted to be just like her …"

Quickly the Ranger reacted in a ready position for a fight. Behind him there was a slender figure with a youthful, highly polished, English accent. He pointed his weapon at the shadowy girl and stood to full height. She had her back to him, staring at the screen. Her hips moved and swayed with the choreography of the musical number as if she knew it by heart. The Ranger watched her cautiously and studied her alertly. She had a red ribbon tied in long regal ringlets in a Christmas bow. Her white nightgown was see through in the projector light. There was also the same distinctive black ribbon around her pale neck. By no means was this girl a scavenger or hill gang member that the youth had ever seen. She was clean, unblemished, and had the wrong accent for this part of the world.

"She watched all of her movies, learned all of her lines … spoke them as if they were a language of its own." The girl spoke through her humming along of the song. "Her Gammy used to really like it. They'd read the lines of her movies together all the time, her brother was the writer of the scripts, you know?" She motioned to the corpse of the old woman. "She used to dress up like her for Gammy, put on recreations of the movies like plays … and her gammy would just love it." She sashayed in step with the woman on screen. "One day she was going to be a big star … That's what her Gammy would wake her up in middle of the night to kiss into her sweaty skin." She whispered dazedly.

The ranger turned for only a moment to look at the corpses of the women, one in the dressing robe, the younger in the wedding dress, before he turned to the girl. "How do you know that?" he glared.

The girl stopped her movement. "Isn't it obvious?" She asked with a shrug of pale shoulders.

Her peer frowned. "Not to me." He replied.

The girl turned around to face him. "Me neither." She gave a girly grin of mischief.

"It's you …"

"Isn't it always?" She replied with a wiggle of eyebrows.

He slowly lowered the Hand Cannon in a wash by old nostalgic memories of happier times and strange nights. It had been a long time since a small boy slept on a child's bed that had once been occupied by his mother and father in their early years of love. And yet the girl that used to meet him there when he closed his eyes hadn't aged a day. She was still a teenage girl. It had been so long since he had been able to place her in his memories.

He had forgotten the young, beautiful, full face of the pale girl who made his nights fun. He still could recall the way her eyes lit up when she smiled and the endless collections of goofy faces that made a foolish small boy laugh and laugh. He always knew she was sad, and that she had come to play with him to feel happy, to feel loved, and to be safe while bad things were happening. She was supposed to be a secret, his secret … he wasn't supposed to tell anyone she existed. It was a mistake he had only made once in his life. He had told his parents of his nightly play time adventures. His mom and dad didn't say a word. They shared a knowing glance between one another in a wordless connection of the mind. Later his mother questioned him relentlessly that night about his whereabouts while he was sleeping. Meanwhile his father spent nights away from home, looking for someone … based on the stories for this dream girl. He never found the woman he was looking for, and the little boy would forever blame himself for being the reason his father wasn't home when his mother was murdered.

And it was all because he couldn't keep a secret, keep _their_ secret.

"You don't remember me do you?" He asked.

The teenage girl seemed hyperactive, swaying and humming to the music that seemed almost a part of her. But to the question she stopped. Tilting her head, she gave a bite to her lip. He watched her frown playfully and waltz up to him. Her eyes searched his face, her slender hand tracing his cheek. There was a light of recognition based on the tactile spark of their touch and yet she didn't know him. But their attachment was formed almost instantaneously. He placed his hand on the back of her head as she cupped his face.

"I'll never forget now." The girl was glassy eyed and emotional.

She had been searching for a safe place, somewhere to hide from those who chased her through her nights. How many times they had captured her and took her down, down, down into … _The_ _Basement_. But almost by happenstance had she found a safe harbor somewhere that no one would find her. In the arms of someone she couldn't help but love for the very first moment she laid eyes on the stranger. She knew almost instinctively that he'd protect her as much as she could love him.

She tossed her arms around his neck and squeezed hard. Tears were in her eyes as she buried her face in his matching curls gratefully. There was familiarity in the way his arms wrapped around her waist. It was not the first time he had hugged this girl, not the first time she had come to him to share desperate affection. His eyes were squinched shut, absorbing her into him, as she planted kisses all over his face before burying her head into the crook of his neck. The old feelings of instinctual love reminded him of how hard he had looked for her all those fresh painful nights when his innocent world was falling apart after his mother's murder. It seemed almost criminal for her to reappear now, so many years later, to see him when there was nothing left of the boy who loved her so much.

"Do you know what I lost the last time you went away?" He whispered in her ear.

To this she gave a kiss to his cheek and looked into hardened eyes. They weren't the eyes of a sixteen year old, but then neither was hers. The girl was quiet a moment, conflicted by the things she didn't understand that he was saying to her. It gave him proof, without a shadow of a doubt, that she hadn't remembered him at all. The consciousness of that epiphany was the first jerk in another self, the room smelling of blood and old_ fish stew_. There were pained groans in the background of a beaten older man man in a chair, sobbing from his interrogation of things he would not tell the brooding and dangerous man the teen grew into.

Sensing that he was about to _awaken_, the girl quickly gave him a suprise kiss to enrapture his attention once more. When they came apart she gave her most dazzling, playful, smile. "Come on …" She nipped his nose with hers lovingly. "Let's go have some fun." She giggled and took his hand with both of hers.

_She gave him a hard playful tug. But he didn't budge. "Come on!" She tugged harder, hoping the setting would change to something else, something safe. But they remained in the decrepit Hollywood manor. She turned around and saw that he was touching his nose. There was something in the affection that had triggered. He remembered a story, a vision of imagination of someone else's familiar signature of love told to him by a drunken father. The nip of the nose, the smelling of hair, the way her eyebrows telegraphed all of her emotion. She wasn't sure how, but he was starting to suspect something, starting to suspect an identity that she thought was impossible for him to know._

_"Tell me about them."_

_His voice was hardened behind an accusatory curiosity of the bodies in front of them. She smiled and shifted her eyes. "Why?" She asked with a blow off. "Who cares, they're not important. Let's just hang out somewhere." She reached up to her tippy-toes and with a playful pull of the lapels of his jacket, she kissed him again. But when they came apart with a smack her smile was starting to become damaged when she saw that he was still looking at her with the eyes of an adult and not a boy._

_"In a minute … tell me about her, the old woman."_

_A flash of fear came over the teenager's face. She bit her lip and averted her eyes away from the matching ones that were looking right through her. "I don't know …" She lied with a shrug._

_"You said that the woman in the wedding dress, she used to perform for her, dress up like the one in the movies." He pressed._

_"No …" She shook her head stepping away from him. "I … no, that's not what happened." She stuttered. Suddenly, the girl fingered the black ribbon tied around her supple throat, frightened of some lost memory that had been unearthed by the harsh questioning._

_"Then what did happen?" He asked suddenly more aggressive than before._

_"Nothing … I don't know." She turned her back to him, her voice high and petulant._

_The man started to notice the girl was rubbing her wrists in muscle memory. He was reminded of the painting, the look on the woman's face. "This one died at least thirty years, before the woman in the wedding dress." He continued to hammer away._

_"Who cares, god, like it's important?!" She lashed out in a voice of frazzled entitlement. The girl reached for his hand. "Let's just go!" She gritted her teeth in a feral snarl that was not the nature of the girl, but of someone she had become over time away from this place._

_"It **is** important!" He replied back with a snap of a man with the exact temperament. "I have never seen this place before in my life. And you wouldn't have shown me this if it wasn't important!" He grabbed the girl and pulled her against him so she could not escape._

_"Tell me!" He gave her a hard shake._

_The girl suddenly gritted her teeth and gave him an aggressive shove back. "It wasn't my fault!" She screamed at him. She shook her head. "She, she wouldn't let me leave … there was a party, a party down on the boulevard and they invited me to go, me! I'd never been to a party before, much less a Hollywood party and she wouldn't let me leave!" She sobbed suddenly holding her head as if some violent and sudden storm of guilt was tearing her apart. "She kept saying that I wasn't safe, **that no one was ever safe**. She said it over and over again while she handcuffed me to the bed." She hugged herself rocking back and forth. "They all left her, Josephine, mommy, and now me. But she wasn't going let me leave her, I … I was sick, and she had to take care of me. God gave me to her, that I belonged with her … too her." She finally looked back at the man. Her face melted in a moment of heart break and fear. "She was commissioning a statue." She sobbed. He turned back to the lobby, to the painting, and knew what that meant._

_"I went into the forbidden wing …" She looked up to a corded off staircase in the obscured shadows, I found the bedroom." She nodded as if reading his mind. "The silk bed of cobwebs, with nothing but golden hair on a skeleton covered in layers of dust!" The girl shook her head. "I waited till she was finished with her nightly visit, till she left, and then I used the lubricant …" She paused and shuttered hard. "I freed myself." A hand reached out to comfort her, but the trauma of the many awful nights in a lavished bedroom caused her to flinch away from any contact._

_"I grabbed my things and was going to go away, but I knew that she'd find me, that she wouldn't stop till I was back in that bed right next to Josephine. So I went downstairs …" She looked at the body of the old woman, tears running freely from her pale cheeks. "I was just going to knock her out, I only wanted some time to get out, I, I didn't mean to hit her so hard!" She sobbed and grabbed the now grown man's leather jacket pleading with him to understand it wasn't her fault._

_"You killed her."_

_She shook her head feverishly. "No … Daddy, Daddy said that it wasn't my fault. He, he said that I did the right thing. He, he'd take care of everything. He'd get mommy out of Pescadero, that he'd get me into High School, a real high school, like in Grease! … He said he'd make it all go away." She nodded to herself. "Daddy said it wasn't my fault!" She reassured him as she reassured herself. She hugged onto the man she loved so suddenly, so deeply. She threw herself against him and held him tightly nuzzling her nose against his curls._

_"Daddy said it wasn't my fault!"_

* * *

Acknowledgements

**"Laura Plamer's Theme – Angelo Badalamenti"**

**"Lavender's Blue - Lily James"**


End file.
